


My way home...

by ionlyloveyouironically



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Kid Fic, all relevant tags for Andrew's past
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2018-09-28 15:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10127732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionlyloveyouironically/pseuds/ionlyloveyouironically
Summary: Two years after they run, Mary Hatford decides it's not working.At age 11, Andrew Doe moves into a massive house with his new foster mother, Stella Josten. They make a picture-perfect family: mother, son, and strange boy who lives inside the walls.





	1. Chapter 1

Here are some facts:

1\. Andrew has never seen a kid over the age of nine get adopted.

2\. At the age of 11, he has been through 24 foster homes.

3\. Half of them left bruises and scars on his skin; 3 of them left him with permanent psychological damage.

_dontthinkaboutthat_

4\. Stella Josten, an unwed woman who was never able to have children of her own, is his new foster mother.

5\. She has lies behind her eyes.

6\. Andrew is so, _so_ tired.

-

Her house is quite large, but areas have been sectioned off with caution tape and plastic curtains like they use in construction sites. Andrew can see blank plaster and concrete beyond those.

“I moved recently,” Stella Josten says, watching him. “It’s a good house, but I wanted to add on and renovate some things. We’ll have workers in here on the week days, just so you know, but fortunately they’ll be on the other side of the house than the kitchen and bedrooms so we can at least have some semblance of privacy.” She huffs in a put-upon way, and leads him through the rest of the house.

The ground floor is halved into the front and the back. The front consists of a foyer, a sitting room, and the wings under renovation. The staircase leading up to the second floor bisects from left to right, and has to be skirted around to get to the back of the house. In the back is an empty den, a bathroom, and the gigantic kitchen, which has a large island and enough space to include a proper dining table and still be roomy.

There’s another staircase in the back as well, which also leads to the second floor, and is less ornate and showy than the one in front. Stella chatters about the layout of the house, and how Andrew can come and go through the back and avoid the front. Andrew is grateful yet suspicious as to why she says this.

The second floor just consists of four massive bedrooms, two of which Stella has commandeered as an office and a bedroom, and a luxurious bathroom. She tells Andrew he can have both of the other rooms. “Use one for a play room, or something. I’m not keen on guests, and really there’s no other use for it."

Andrew is waiting for the other shoe to drop. He waits for it as he gets his bag from the car and sets it down in his room ( _rooms, what the fuck_ ), he waits for it when they go to the store and Stella buys him an entire array of things he didn’t know he needed, like fancy soap and shampoo and a new toothbrush and bedsheets, and he waits for it when they order pizza when they get home and she asks him what his favorite topping is.

He has to lock himself in his room later to freak out in private. ( _All the doors have locks, I’m safe._ ) Andrew’s realized that when he stresses out too badly, he kind of spaces out. Everything goes flat, and his mind oozes out of his ears and down his body to puddle on the floor at his feet. But he’s still somewhat aware of his body right now, so he pinches the soft flesh inside his upper arm to bring his mind back where it belongs.

-

Stella isn’t a very intimidating figure. She’s of slender build and no more than 5’2. Her light brown eyes are rimmed with long lashes, and her blonde bangs cover her forehead. Objectively, she’s pretty, and Andrew doesn’t really know why she hasn’t been married.

She works from home, in her office that she locks when she leaves it. He doesn’t know what she does, and he’s curious enough to want to pick the lock and see. He doesn’t; this is the best place he’s been in in a while, and he’s not going to purposely sabotage himself. Even if her endless questions repeatedly catch him off guard.

_Do you like video games? What about movies? Do you have a favorite book? What’s your favorite color? What do you like to eat?_

He wants to scream because he doesn’t know, but then, “Sweet. Anything sweet.”

Stella makes a face at him over the roof of the car. “What kind of sweet?”

He shrugs. “Like. Candy, and ice cream, and Pop-Tarts and shi- stuff.”

She waves away his near miss. “I don’t care if you swear, just don’t do it around authority figures and don’t ever swear at me, got it?”

He nods and gets in the car after her.

At the grocery store, he pushes the cart while she holds onto the front and directs where to go. It’s a very domestic scene, and Andrew really doesn’t know how he’s supposed to get used to this woman that makes shopping look like walking through a battlefield.

They go to the produce first. “Okay, here’s the deal. We’re getting healthy food. Fruit is healthy _and_ sweet. Fan of vegetables?” He shakes his head. “Figures. Well, we’re getting some, and you’re gonna eat them if you want dessert.”

“What kind of dessert?” he asks, suspicious.

“One slice of whatever I happen to have around.”

“You don’t have anything around, the cupboards are bare.”

She levels a flat look at him. “That’s why we’re at the store, isn’t it? Now, what kind of real food do you like?”

-

They paint his room, and the one next to it. A calming cornflower blue and a rich forest green, respectively. Stella works in her office afterwards while he goes downstairs to the den while the paint dries. There’s nothing much in the den yet save for a TV and a beanbag chair. Stella hasn’t had time to pick furniture out yet, and she’d thrown one of two sleeping bags at him last night and said they’d get him a proper mattress in a couple days.

They order out again for dinner, Chinese this time, and then he tells her he’s going to spend the night down in the den to avoid the paint fumes.

He dozes off after midnight, having stayed up to relish the fact that he could change the channel and watch whatever he wanted. He jerks awake a little before dawn, heart racing, paralyzed with leftover fear despite the adrenaline in his veins urging him to move. _You’re awake now_ , he tells himself. _You’re safe, don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it._

He turns the TV off and focuses his breathing into something less ragged and terrified, and keeps the tears in his eyes from falling. He lays in silence in his sleeping bag and listens to the house around him. The hum of the air conditioning. The rustle of his sleeping bag as he turns to lay on his back. The click of a door shutting.

_Wait._

Andrew holds his breath. No one else should be awake right now. Part of him wants to duck down into the sleeping bag and hide. The older part of him tells that part, _This will always happen._

His lungs are screaming by the time he hears another sound: light footsteps on the bottom steps of the stairs, the soft slapping of bare feet across tile. And now Andrew’s confused, because he’s good at telling how big a person is based on their footsteps, and this person has to be smaller than he is.

He creeps out of his sleeping bag silently, and moves soundlessly to the doorway of the den, peeking around the corner. It takes him a moment to find the small figure, looking through the cupboards. They pull something down, shut it, and turn towards the sink. When they do, a shaft of light from the outside hits the side of their face, and Andrew can see them clearly.

It’s a boy, smaller than Andrew, probably younger too. His hair is a severe crewcut, highlighting the childish roundness of his cheeks, and the long, pretty lashes that frame his big eyes. He yawns and rubs an eye with the heel of his hand, then turns the faucet on and fills up the glass he pulled down from the cupboard. He sits down with his back to the island, out of view of the stairs, and sips at his glass of water.

Andrew can’t help but stare at him, dumbfounded. He’s confused as to why this kid is in what’s supposed to be _his_ new house. He and Stella are supposed to be the only ones here, are supposed to be the only ones even capable of getting in the house. He’s confused, and angry that he’s confused, and still coming down from a nightmare. He’s tired enough that he doesn’t think twice before creeping up behind the kitchen island silently and asking, “What are you doing here?”

There’s a small thud and splash, as if the kid startled back into the island and spilled some water. He doesn’t answer for a long while. Andrew waits him out until his eyes appear over the edge of the counter, looking at Andrew. He still doesn’t answer.

Andrew refuses to be creeped out by the big eyes staring unblinkingly at him. He crosses his arms and scowls. “I asked you a fucking question.” Swearing always tended to scare the younger kids in his other foster homes, so he goes with that.

It doesn’t have the desired effect. The kid rolls his eyes as if he can see through what Andrew is trying to do, but he stands fully up. He barely has a foot in height on the counter. He takes a sip from the water remaining in his glass and says, “I live here.”

“No you don’t.”

“You never see me, but I do.”

Andrew squints at him. “ _I_ live here. I would have noticed-”

“No you wouldn’t have.” The kid smiles at him slightly, like he’s enjoying pissing Andrew off. “I live in the walls.”

Andrew scoffs. “Spooky,” he responds flatly. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I am,” the kid argues. He’s really getting irritating. “But listen. If you don’t tell anyone you saw me, I’ll give you something.”

“What could you have that’s good enough to stop me from telling her-” he nods upward to the second floor where Stella is asleep- “that there’s a crazy kid squatting in her house?”

The kid watches him carefully. He’s still smiling slightly, but there’s a glint in his eye that lets Andrew know that he can very easily become a threat. He shrugs. “Whatever you want. You just can’t tell anyone.”

“The truth,” Andrew decides. “The next time I see you, I want the truth.”

Something twists in the kid’s face. Nothing overt, but his expression becomes just a little bitter. “That’s fine. Just keep quiet.” And then he sets the glass in the sink, says “Bye,” and slips from the kitchen towards the front of the house. He moves silently enough that Andrew half believes that he’s lurking in the darkness just outside the kitchen.

He flicks the kitchen light on, but the hallway is empty. He searches through the front of the house, flicking all the lights on as he goes, including the parts under renovation. There’s no trace that anyone other than Andrew had been there.

-

“Sleep okay?” Stella asks him the next morning.

He chews on his cereal and swallows before answering. “Yeah.”

_That kid better pay up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is planned out and has a plot, I swear. I just needed to get the first chapter out so I'd be able to force myself to write the rest.
> 
> Kudos/comments keep me active and writing!
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/1980sghostboy) and [tumblr](http://www.1980sghostboy.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd just like to say thank you to everyone who has left comments and kudos, they really mean the world to me! Thank you for reading!

Andrew doesn’t see the kid, who he’s started secretly referring to as Ghost Boy, for a while after that first time. He would almost think it was a dream if not for the puddle of water Stella had complained about stepping in the morning after. He doesn’t really care; he’s vaguely curious about the boy, but he’s also accepted that the kid probably has no intention of ever seeing Andrew again. If he was squatting, he’d probably moved on to someplace else by now.

Stella had told the truth about the construction workers. They come at dawn on the weekdays and leave when the sun starts setting. Stella lets them in and out of the gates each time, not trusting the security codes to anyone that isn’t herself or Andrew.

The security is another thing that strikes Andrew as suspicious about Stella Josten. He’s seen TV, and he knows that rich Californians are obsessive about home security, but this is on a whole new level. The property is surrounded by a high, wrought iron fence, impossible to climb. There’s a code to get in the front, and then you’re able to proceed directly to the front door. The backyard is walled off by a thick, impenetrable hedge. There’s a secret gate within the hedge and a hidden keypad and code to open it, but it’s unnoticeable to anyone who doesn’t know what they’re looking for.

The back door and front door both require a magnetic lock and code to get in. Every single code is different, meaning Andrew has to memorize four completely different strings of numbers and where they belong. With his memory, though, it’s not difficult at all.

“Okay,” he says, handing the paper back to Stella. They’re in her office, sitting across from each other at her desk. It reminds him of the times he’s gotten in trouble at school.

“Okay?” she echoes, raising an eyebrow. “This is serious, Andrew. I won’t have our safety compromised because you think you can remember this.”

He wants to ask what exactly she is trying to stay safe from. “I memorized it.”

“What’s the code to the back door?” Her eyes are hard and intense, and Andrew has the feeling he’s seeing a previously hidden facet of her for the first time.

“41052,” he answers automatically.

“The front gate?”

“86125.”

“Back gate.”

“17593. And the front door is 36917.” He raises his eyebrows. _Good enough?_

She watches him for a moment longer before settling back. “That’s some great memory you have there.”

He shrugs. To him it’s normal. Everyone else’s memory is just shitty.

Stella lets him go after making plans to go buy furniture later, and he heads downstairs to help himself to the big box of donuts Stella had gotten for breakfast earlier. Andrew always wake up after her, whether he gets up early in the morning or not. If he’s up early enough she makes breakfast for the two of them, but if he sleeps in she’ll get something that’ll keep until he’s awake.

Half the box is taken up by the boring jam-filled donuts old people love to eat. Andrew disregards those in favor of the other half, which holds a much more Andrew-friendly variety. He’s deciding whether he really wants to deal with sprinkles at this point when there’s a shuffling noise behind him and he turns.

One of the construction workers is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, swiping a hand across his forehead. Andrew doesn’t know how long he’s been there, and his chest goes tight for a moment in surprise.

The man doesn’t look very old, probably in his early twenties. He flashes Andrew a charming, white-toothed smile and takes a step forward. “Hey, little man. How’s it going?”

Andrew doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t. It doesn’t seem to perturb the guy, though, because he leans on the island across from Andrew and raises up the hem of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face. Andrew looks away. “You would not _believe_ how hot it gets reconstructing a whole wing of a house, man. I was wondering if you could possibly get me a glass so I could have a drink of water?”

There’s no reason to say no, especially since the guy could conceivably find a glass on his own anyway. But Andrew doesn’t know whether Stella would want the guy digging through her cupboards, and he doesn’t want to get in trouble for allowing it to happen. He decides to just get the guy a glass and turns to reach and get one down.

When he turns back the guy is watching him, and the hairs on the back of Andrew’s neck stand up, but he holds out the cup to him anyway. The guy smiles and takes it, but doesn’t move toward the sink. “Don’t talk much, do ya, little guy?”

Andrew shrugs again. The guy opens his mouth to say something else but is cut off by a cold, “What are you doing in here?”

Stella is standing in the doorway that the guy had appeared in only minutes before, arms crossed and face blank.

The construction worker straightens up, and Andrew only just notices at that moment how far he’d been leaning down. “Mrs. Josten! I was-”

“Miss Josten,” she corrects in the same cold tone. “There is no reason for you to be in my kitchen. There’s nothing for you to _construct_ in here.” She steps to the side. “Go back, and send your supervisor in here.”

The guy pauses, then sets the glass down and stalks out of the room, skirting around Stella. She turns her head and watches him go, then turns to Andrew. “Wait for me in your room for a minute.”

He goes, donuts all but forgotten, and only realizes how tense his shoulders are when he makes it into his room and lets his shoulders slump. He sits down on the edge of his bed, which is still just a plain mattress on the floor, and holds his hands in his lap, waiting.

This is something that’s happened often enough in his life. Being told to wait for a beating ( _or worse_ , the traitor part of his mind says). He gives himself a short moment to be angry, for not knowing what he did, for fucking up the best place he’s been sent to, before shutting that feeling down. It’s useless. He tucks his hands under his thighs to keep himself in the present, and has mostly attained his usual apathy by the time Stella walks in.

She leaves the door open halfway, and sits down cross-legged on the floor in front of Andrew, holding out a plate to him. On it are two donuts with an optimistic banana off to the side. He takes the plate, and looks up when Stella asks,

“Are you okay, Andrew?” in a surprisingly soft tone.

He doesn’t know what she’s asking for, but he nods anyway.

She narrows her eyes at him like she knows he’s lying, but lets it go. “Well anyway, I spoke with that man’s supervisor. I made it clear before they started that they were to stay in that one section of the house, and I told him again just now if it happens again they’re all fired.” She huffs out a breath through her nose, then refocuses on Andrew. “Now you and I have to talk.”

Andrew very much doesn’t want to talk. Somehow she doesn’t seem angry at him, which is more of a relief than he’d like to admit, but if it’s one thing he’s learned about Stella through careful observation this past week, it’s that she’s a very shrewd and cunning woman. He’s wary ( _afraid_ ) of what she has to say, of whether she’s been able to see any signs of guilt etched into his face.

“I need you to stay away from strangers,” she says, and Andrew blinks. He waits for her to continue, but she just looks at him.

“Is… that it?” he asks. “You’re giving me the stranger danger talk?”

Her eyebrows furrow slightly. “Yes. I don’t know what your other foster homes were like, but it’s imperative that you know not to talk to people you don’t know. There are a lot of predators in the world and you need to be careful.”

“No shit,” he blurts.

One side of her mouth quirks up in a wry smirk. “I had to make sure you knew. It’s my job to protect you now, but you also have to help me out a little.”

What a concept, being _protected_. Andrew doesn’t quite believe her about that, but he thinks he might be stupid enough to let her try to prove herself.

“Alright.” She stands up, and points at him. “Eat your breakfast and get dressed so we can finally go get you some furniture in here.”

He stares down at his plate for a moment after she leaves, and then does as she says.

-

The rest of summer passes uneventfully, and Andrew focuses on trying not to get too comfortable in what seems to be the closest thing to perfect he’ll ever get.

In the past two months, he hasn’t been: slapped, kicked, tripped, punched, scratched, or touched _at all_. The only things she asks him to do are basic chores, loading the dishwasher and taking out the trash, which he alternates with her. She spends most of the day in her office working, but she always eats dinner with him across the sturdy dining table.

He’s never been part of such a… _home_ before. It’s frankly a little disconcerting, so he tries his best not to dwell on it. He spends most of his time roaming around the house and purposefully not arranging the furniture in his room how he wants it.

A few weeks before school is supposed to start, Stella hands him a cell phone and says, “Here. I’ve already programmed my number in.”

He stares at the phone. “What.”

“For when you get tired of being inside and want to roam the neighborhood. I know the library’s just a few blocks down. Now you’ll be able to call me if you need anything, and I’ll feel better about letting you go out.”

Andrew is still looking down. He holds in his hand the most expensive thing anyone’s ever given him. He wants to throw it on the ground and smash it. Instead he closes his fingers around it and says flatly, “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Stella replies, distracted. He looks up to find her typing something on her Blackberry, as if Andrew’s crisis is insignificant. He’s grateful for it. She looks back at him. “I’m gonna be in my office for the rest of the day, so if you decide to leave, knock on the door and let me know, alright?”

“I think I’ll head to the library in a minute, like you said.” He’d had no plans of doing any such thing before he opened his mouth, but Stella smiles at him, so now he’s committed. He gets dressed and makes his way into the bright sunshine.

Andrew knows where the library is only because when he first came to Stella they’d passed it on the way. As he walks, he studies his new phone. It’s a Sidekick 3, apparently. He recalls that it came out earlier this month and is struck again by the fact that in the two months he’s known her, Stella Josten has treated him more kindly than anyone else he’s ever met.

He mentally shakes himself. He knows he can’t trust her, not like the little traitorous part of his mind wants to. Almost everything about her screams _untrustworthy_ , and he can’t let himself forget that just because she gave him something nice. Her keeping secrets means there’s something afoot that could potentially hurt Andrew, and he was so tired of being hurt.

The little traitorous part of his mind whispers, _She’s never covered up the fact that she has secrets. She doesn’t care if you notice._

Halfway to the library, he stops in the middle of the sidewalk and turns around, not wanting to be outside anymore. He feels restless, and being inside probably won’t help, but his brain is starting to feel gooey, and at least this way he can have a small meltdown in privacy.

It should alarm him that he’s started taking it for granted that he’s allowed privacy. He never has been before. It’s one of the weirder things about Stella Josten: she always allows him privacy, only enters his room with his explicit permission. It’s how he knows for a fact she has a lot of secrets. Obviously she knows the importance of privacy.

Stella’s car isn’t in the driveway when he walks up, and he assumes she’s gone out for something, or something work-related came up. It’s Saturday, and the construction crew isn’t working, so he goes in through the front and changes course last minute to head into the backyard. It’s spacious and green, and Stella has started a small ring of flowers off to one side. Andrew steps outside, and stops dead in his tracks.

Ghost Boy is laying on the patio on his back, eyes closed, looking dead. His skin is so pale it’s almost translucent, and in the daylight Andrew can see plum-colored shadows under his eyes. He appears small in the daytime, and much younger than Andrew.

Moments pass without the kid moving, and Andrew starts to think he might actually be dead. He takes a few cautious steps forward until he’s standing over him. “Hey.” No response. The boy’s chest is still moving, so he’s probably not actually dead. That just means it’s a perfect opportunity for Andrew to collect.

“Hey. Loser.” The boy’s face doesn’t even twitch. Andrew watches his eyelashes, strawberry blonde in the sunlight, flutter faintly as the boy’s eyes move beneath his eyelids. _Fuck it_ , he thinks, and softly kicks him in the side.

The boy startles awake immediately, and grabs Andrew’s ankle, jerking it at the perfect angle for Andrew to lose his balance and fall flat on his back on the patio, hard enough that the breath leaves his lungs in an audible _oof_. He gasps for a moment, then wheezes out, “Holy hell.”

“Oh,” Ghost Boy says, now sitting up a little ways away. “It’s you.”

Andrew casts him a disparaging look, and struggles into a sitting position. “Yes, it’s me. And now I’ve caught you once again.”

“Neat,” he says, and stands up, turning to go back inside.

“Hey, kid,” Andrew says, stopping him. “We had a deal.”

The boy pauses for a moment, thinking, then turns back to Andrew. “The deal seems a little one-sided, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you. You answer my questions, and I don’t rat you out to the other person _actually_ living here. Seems perfectly symbiotic to me.” He spreads his hands as if to showcase the frustratingly simple terms.

“I told you, I _do_ live here,” the boy responds, expression turning annoyed.

“Right. In the walls, you said.” The boy just looks at him. His eyes are a shade of blue Andrew’s never seen before. “I’ll take my truths now, by the way.”

He narrows his eyes. “What exactly do you want to know?”

Andrew taps at his chin in a cartoonish display of thinking. “How about, your name, why you’re here, what you’re doing, and we’ll go from there.”

The boy’s mouth works for a moment, and then, he smirks. “My name is Neil.” He turns again and heads for the door.

“I said-”

“I know what you said.” The boy, _Neil_ , turns to look over his shoulder at Andrew. “I told you I’d tell you everything. But I never said you’d get it all at once. You have one truth, and that’s all you get at a time. Catch me again and you get another.” He flashes Andrew a facetious smile and slips inside the door, leaving him outside.

Andrew scowls after him. He’d let himself be scammed, by a little runt named _Neil_ no less. Next time he catches him he’ll make sure he can’t escape, and interrogate him. He’s not used to being so curious about people, but perhaps having a mysterious boy living inside the walls of a house could do that to a person.

He gets up and brushes his hands off on his jeans. His brain feels normal again despite the hard fall, and he marvels briefly at how this kid managed twice to derail one of Andrew’s meltdowns. There must be something to the element of surprise.

His phone chimes in his pocket. It’s unscratched, and he suddenly feels anxious at the thought of having to make sure this small piece of technology stays in good condition. He ignores himself, as usual, and thumbs the screen on to read a text from Stella letting him know she’d gone to the store and was taking requests. He texts back his usual response of _candy_ , and slides the phone shut.

In his room, he thinks about Neil. There was neither hide nor hair of him when Andrew came in and went upstairs, but that isn’t really surprising. Andrew would think Neil was a very interesting hallucination if not for the new aches in his back. He lays back on his bed and thinks about the boy, and somehow falls asleep, only waking when Stella knocks on his door for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wasn't even that long and the ending's bad but it took forever, even without the break I took. Sorry for the wait!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who reads this and leaves kudos and comments. I read all of them (multiple times) and even if I don't reply I appreciate them so much. Thank y'all!

Andrew doesn’t have a good track record with school. Not because it’s especially hard for him, but because it’s so uninteresting. He only has to see or hear something once to remember it forever, so he spends whole weeks in class nearly dying of boredom. He gets in trouble with his teachers often because he doesn’t bother doing homework, though he makes perfect scores on all his tests.

Which is why he feels singularly betrayed when Stella reveals in the car that they’re actually going _back to school shopping_.

“I knew we weren’t getting ice cream,” he accuses darkly from the passenger seat, arms crossed as he stares out the window, the perfect picture of the word _sulk_.

“That’s because you’re not gullible,” Stella answers brightly. She turns her head to smile at him, eyes crinkling behind her big sunglasses. He curls his lip at her and turns away. “Come on, Andrew. You’ve changed the subject every time I’ve brought up going to school. You need new clothes. And your shoes are falling apart.”

He doesn’t answer. He’s had shoes in worse shape before, ones that were more duct tape than actual shoe.

The conversation doesn’t continue, and Stella seems comfortable enough in the silence to leave the radio off. Andrew wishes for a moment that she were easier to perturb with his stony silence, but soon enough they pull up to a department store and go in.

Andrew is as uncooperative as possible, but somehow it doesn’t seem to faze Stella, because she remains as placid as a frozen lake. “If you help me out here, we’ll actually go for ice cream when we’re done.”

He eyes her distrustfully, ignoring the pair of jeans she holds out to him.

“Cross my heart and hope to die, Andrew,” she swears.

He sighs dramatically, and takes the jeans from her. “Fine,” he says. “But you have to let me get whatever I want.”

“Deal. Go try those on.”

They’re small, but Andrew is little and skinny for his age, so they fit loosely on him. They get several pairs of pants, and quite a few T-shirts and polos and sweaters, and it’s already more clothing than he’s ever owned at one time. He’s categorizing them in his mind to evaluate which items are important enough to him to take up space in his bags so that when he inevitably leaves he’ll be able to pack quickly.

After the clothes, they go to a shoe store, and he gets three different pairs of shoes. The number displayed by the register when they check out is high enough to give Andrew pause, but when he looks up at her, Stella just breezily swipes her credit card without a second glance.

“See? That wasn’t so bad,” she says as they load up the trunk with their purchases. Andrew doesn’t answer, because it really wasn’t, but he still doesn’t relish the thought of school next week.

They do end up parked outside of an ice cream shop. He returns her defiant smile with an unamused look and orders a cup full of cake-batter flavor. They sit outside at one of the metal tables and relax, keeping the Santa Clara summer heat at bay with their ice cream. Stella talks absently about the discrepancies between certain laws in each state, and Andrew listens. He doesn’t trust her, but he realizes that he can rely on her to do what she says she will.

-

Andrew has nightmares. He thinks they’re probably worse now that he’s in a more forgiving placement. Like his brain finally has enough spare energy to punish him for everything that’s happened.

Tonight he dreams of the first time, of Steven, and wakes up smothering the _please_ fighting to make it out of his mouth. He puts a hand over his mouth and breathes hard through his nose. He can feel fingers on him, he can feel the bed move, he can feel _pain_ -

_Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it dontthinkaboutit dontthinkaboutit dontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutit_

He screws his eyes shut and doesn’t notice the wetness on his cheeks as he repeats those four words over and over and over until the sun comes up.

-

He tries to seem normal as he helps Stella with pancakes, but she must notice something’s off because she doesn’t remind him that he has school in two days. Not that Andrew needs a reminder. He knows.

“I have a few errands to do today, so I’ll be out. You can come if you want, but I think you should try to get a little more sleep.” There’s concern on her face. Andrew doesn’t believe it and he knows he won’t get any more sleep, but he shrugs an _okay_ , and she tells him to call if he needs anything and leaves.

He cleans up the kitchen, loading the dishwasher and wiping down the counters, and then is at a loss for what to do, so he sits at the table and looks out the window to the backyard.

There aren’t many safe places for his mind to wander off to, and it’s like a dog pulling at its owner’s leash, only the dog is far too big for him to hold back. The problem is that he remembers everything so vividly it feels like it’s happening _right now_. He can feel the sting of the papercut he got in second grade, he can taste the dirt in his mouth when old neighborhood bullies shoved his face into the ground, and he can feel-

_Not that. Don’t think about that. Don’t think about it._

He loses a little bit of time, which usually happens when his brain won’t stay in his head. The next thing he knows, he’s flinching back violently from a hand waving in his face.

“Whoa!” says the body belonging to the hand, jumping back. “Are you okay?”

Andrew looks up into the body’s face, and realizes it’s Neil. “What are you doing?” he asks eventually.

“What are _you_ doing?” Neil shoots back, lowering his shoulders from their defensive hunch. “You’re sitting here staring off into nothing, it’s weird.”

“I asked first,” Andrew replies tiredly.

Neil gives him a look that Andrew doesn’t have the energy to decipher, but shrugs and sits in the chair next to him. He sits sideways so he can still comfortably have his eyes on Andrew. “I’m hungry, so I decided to make some French toast.”

Andrew hums in acknowledgment, then looks back out the window again. He doesn’t feel entirely real. “There’s leftover pancakes in the fridge,” he says distantly. He feels like a stuffed animal unravelling at the seams, and he imagines himself in plushie form, threads coming undone and his limbs falling off, the cotton coming out. He only catches the last of what Neil says.

“...heavy, y’know?” Neil looks at him as if expecting a reply.

He looks back to Neil. “I wasn’t listening.”

Neil scoffs and rolls his eyes, but doesn’t repeat himself. After a moment, he casts Andrew a careful once-over and points out, “I would have thought you’d demand a truth by now.”

It’s not a particularly complicated sentence, but Andrew’s foggy brain still takes a moment to make sense of it. “Oh,” he replies, then shrugs. “I don’t have any questions right now.”

He can feel Neil’s eyes on him, but it’s not enough of a bother that he says something. He knows normally he’d be asking Neil any number of questions right now, but he can’t for the life of him fathom what they would be. He turns to look at Neil, and studies him. His closely-cropped orange hair has grown out into a small halo of fuzz since Andrew first saw him, bright enough to appear blonde where the sunlight hits. He’s pretty skinny, Andrew notices. Andrew isn’t very big himself, but Neil is practically skin and bone.

“You should help me make French toast,” Neil says, and Andrew realizes he’s crazy.

“Why should I?”

Neil smirks at him. “Because you didn’t immediately say ‘no’.”

“That doesn’t mean I said yes,” he snaps.

“If you really didn’t want to, you’d have said so.” He hops to his feet and heads over to the fridge, rummaging around inside. “C’mon, Andrew.”

Andrew is at a loss for how it came to this. He doesn’t particularly like Neil- in fact, he’s pretty aggravating- but he doesn’t have anything else to do other than lay in bed and let his mind get the better of him, so he goes to stand next to Neil. “What do you want me to do?”

Neil looks over his shoulder where he’s standing on his tiptoes to reach the top shelf of the fridge. “Get a frying pan out.” Andrew roots around for one and emerges victorious. Neil sets his bounty of milk and eggs on the counter and reaches for the bread. “Cool. Could you get a bowl for me, please?”

His entire body tenses up and he _freezes_. Normally he wouldn’t react like this, he hears that word all the time, but today is different. The memory is too close, he just dreamt about this…

Neil notices, because he’s gone still and quiet, and _damn it_. Andrew closes his eyes, breathes in, breathes out, and says, “I don’t like that word.”

A pause. “Which word? P- The last one I said?”

Andrew nods. He opens his eyes to look at Neil, who is gazing back at him with a considering look. “Okay,” Neil replies. “I won’t say it again.” He hesitates again. “Can you still get the bowl?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yes, I can still get the damn bowl.” He has to stand on his tiptoes to do it, but he has a couple inches on Neil, who likely would have had to climb on the counter.

“Great, thanks. Okay, now we have to mix the eggs and milk, put the bread in it, and then put it in the pan. Easy enough.” Neil looks at the ingredients like he expects someone to take the next step.

Andrew scowls at him. “So? Get on with it.”

Neil turns to him. “Don’t you know how to make it?”

Andrew’s scowl intensifies. “No. I’ve never done this before.”

“Oh.” Neil turns back to the counter, much more bemused than he was a second ago. “I don’t really remember the specifics…”

Andrew sighs as he trails off. “Well. Bread is absorbent, right? And you’re pretty hungry anyway, so we should probably use… eight eggs.”

“Are you sure? I don’t remember using that many.”

“Your memory sucks anyway, I don’t trust it.”

“Fine! Then how much milk do we use?”

Half an hour later, they realize eight eggs were far too many. They also realize they were supposed to put butter in the pan first. Half of the slices are torn nearly in half, and some are burnt on one side and undercooked on the other (“It’ll balance out when I eat it.” “I didn’t help you just so you could _die_.”). Overall, it isn’t a roaring success, but Neil manages to eat enough to get full.

“Thanks, Andrew,” he says, watching Andrew scrape the remnants of burned bread into the garbage. Andrew hums, and turns to load the dishwasher, then turns back.

“How do you know my name, anyway?”

The other boy shrugs. “I hear things,” he answers vaguely.

“From inside the walls?” he snipes back.

Neil only smiles and says, “Yup,” before taking another bite.

“Whatever,” Andrew scoffs. He walks towards the stairs and says, “You owe me a truth. Don’t keep me waiting.” He hears Neil snort and ignores it to go to his bedroom and collapse into bed, where he falls asleep. He doesn’t have nightmares.

-

It’s always easier to be the new kid at the beginning of the school year, when everyone’s focused more on themselves than those around them. The first day of junior high goes relatively smoothly; for once he’s not being singled out because of how frail he looks or how shitty his clothes are. He can just go to class, listen absentmindedly, and regret letting Stella convince him he’d need every single item on his school supplies list for the very first day. At least his backpack is sturdy.

He can’t find the energy within himself to attempt any friendships. He never has before, because he either wanted to be alone, or he knew he’d be moving soon enough. And things with Stella seem great now, but something always happens. He knows he can’t stay with her forever, that she won’t adopt him. She’s not his happily ever after, which is fine, because he doesn’t really need one.

Stella had dropped him off this morning, but he’d insisted he could walk back himself in the afternoon. The weather is warm but not hot, and he takes the time to shake the chill of industrial A/C out of his bones. It’s a half-hour journey by foot, most of it uphill. He soon leaves behind other kids that have to walk home; it’s a suburban area, and any kid that lives more than five minutes away either rides the bus or gets picked up by a parent.

Andrew isn’t bitter about not having money. Being bitter would imply that he felt entitled to it, which he doesn’t. But that doesn’t stop him from looking down on his classmates, which he can distantly recognize is what other people would call unfair. He’s seen more of the world than any of them. Probably their parents, too. What do any of them know about the truth of the world? They’ve never had to fight tooth and nail just to wake up every morning.

That’s the real reason he won’t make friends here: he can’t relate to any of them. He’s older than most of the kids in his grade, and smarter than all of them. He has more life experience than all of them combined. He doesn’t know the first thing about what it’s like being an average, suburban sixth-grader.

He’s not sad about it, or any emotion, really. It’s just the way it is.

He takes a side street that lets him out near the gate to the backyard and lets himself in. He hasn’t seen that one construction worker since the incident, but he still likes to steer clear of the renovations, the mystery of which he still hasn’t solved.

He detours past Stella’s office on the way to his room, and knocks lightly on her half-open door. She’s on the phone, but she waves him in. “Yeah, no, I’m not concerned about the _price_ , so much as…” She rolls her eyes at Andrew as if to say _Can you believe the goons I’m working with?_ and thrusts a small plastic container full of grapes at him. She covers the speaker and says softly, “After-school snack. I’ll be done in a couple hours.” He nods and gives her a sarcastic salute as he heads back out the door.

He still hasn’t figured out what it is that Stella does, but he doesn’t really care to know, either. Some foster parents in the past had only taken him in for the monthly government stipend (what little it was), and then acted like _he_ owed _them_. He trusts Stella as far as he can throw her, but he recognizes that she’s not a direct threat. If his presence is being used in any way, he can’t find it in himself to care.

He goes to his room and ends up lounged on his bed, reading a Harry Potter book he checked out of the school library today. It’s not really very interesting, and he only makes it four chapters before he falls asleep curled up on his side, the book falling from his hand onto the bedspread.

He wakes when he hears a small thump and an intake of surprised breath, eyes flashing open. He scrambles back on instinct, heart crashing in his chest, and looks frantically around the room to find- Neil.

The boy is crouched over just inside the closed doorway, holding one of his feet while he balances on the other. The light from the beginning sunset paints him in a cascade of pinks that tint the obnoxiously bright fuzz on his head a more forgiving color. He looks up when he hears Andrew move, and winces.

“What are you doing?” Andrew asks, dull after his momentary panic.

Neil lets go of his foot and straights up slightly. “I stubbed my toe.”

“You’re an idiot,” Andrew says. Neil scowls at him for a moment, then opens his mouth to reply, only to be cut off by the sound of light footsteps approaching. He freezes, and Andrew takes a moment to note that reaction and the pale shade of his face before clicking his fingers at him. ” _Get under the bed_ ,” he mouths, pointing down at the mattress beneath him.

Quickly and silently, Neil crosses the room and shimmies into the narrow space between Andrew’s mattress and the floor. Stella knocks lightly on the closed door and calls, “Andrew?”

Andrew takes a moment to think about how lucky it is that Neil’s so small, then answers, “Come in.”

She does, one foot in and one foot out like she doesn’t want to encroach too badly on his space. “Hey, dinner’s almost ready. When did you wake up?”

“A little bit ago,” Andrew answers, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “What are we having?”

“Chicken spaghetti.”

“I’ll be down in a minute,” he tells her, and she leaves. He listens to her retreating footsteps then leans over the side of his bed to get an upside-down look at Neil huddling in the corner farthest from the door.

Neil looks at him with wide eyes. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, we have a deal. You owe me three answers when I get back up here.”

“I owe you two,” he protests.

Andrew holds up a hand and counts off on his fingers. “One for Saturday. One for right now. One for when I get back. One and one and one is three, or do you not know how to count?”

Neil throws him a dark look. “Your face is turning red.”

Andrew sits back up. He knocks the Harry Potter book to the floor and kicks it under the bed for Neil. “So you don’t get bored. It’s about a little boy who lives in a cupboard. You can relate.” He smirks when he hears a low sound of anger from under the bed and leaves, flicking the bedroom light on as he goes.

-

Dinner with Stella is… _relaxing_ isn’t the right word. His stress isn’t alieved in any way after any of their meals together. But it is comfortable. The routine of it, how they can sit in silence together, no expectations from either party. Andrew would be disappointed- about how _easy_ and _good_ this could be if she would just stop lying to him- but you’d have to expect things from other people to be disappointed in the results.

Back in his room, he sits on his desk, which he hasn’t yet found a use for, and asks, “Done being a little monster yet?” If Neil isn’t still under there, he’s about to feel very dumb.

There’s no need; Neil pokes his head out from the shadows under Andrew’s bed and scowls. “This book sucks.”

Andrew kind of agrees, but doesn’t want to give him the validation. “Time to pay up,” he says, changing the subject.

Neil crawls out and sits cross-legged on the floor. “What do you want to know?”

Andrew studies Neil studying him. Andrew’s first assessment of the boy whispers through his mind. _Threat._ “Where are your parents?”

“Gone,” Neil answers emotionlessly. His eyes dart a way and then back, now fueled by a defiant fire.

“Gone?” Andrew repeats. “What does that mean?”

“Is that your second question?” Neil snipes.

Andrew thinks for a moment. “Yes,” he decides.

Neil’s eyes fall to the floor and remain there while he speaks. “They… My dad was involved in… illegal stuff. One day before school my mom handed me my backpack and told me to act like I was going to school, but meet her somewhere else. She never turned up at the rendezvous spot.” He finally looks back up at Andrew, daring him to say something.

Andrew’s never been one to pass up a challenge. “So, what, you just never went back home? You thought your family might be dead so you just up and run?”

Neil regards him for a moment with a blank look, and then pushes up the sleeve of his T-shirt and says, “There wasn’t much worth sticking around for.”

He angles his upper arm so that the light catches on the too-smooth messy scar tissue of a massive burn. Andrew leans forward slightly to get a better look, and notes the few small circles of perfectly unharmed flesh within the burn. It’s in the shape of an iron.

Andrew sits back and blinks. Neil tugs his sleeve back down. He’s so small that it covers his arm all the way to his elbow. “Do you have others?”

Neil nods. “Other scars, yes.” He doesn’t elaborate further.

“How long are you staying here?”

He shrugs. “As long as I can.”

Andrew supposes that means as long as he can without being caught. If Neil ever suspects Stella has vague suspicions of a runaway boy living illegally in her house, he’ll leave. Andrew realizes with a small lurch of his stomach that he really doesn’t want him to.

Neil is the most interesting kid he’s come across in recent memory. His life has taken on a dull monotony through the years: get shuttled off to a new house, get used to it, get sent back, repeat. He’s used to not being settled in one place, he’s used to being hungry, he’s used to every touch _hurting_ , he’s used to being quiet, and he’s used to the idea that that’s all that his life would be.

Neil is different, somehow, even though Andrew has little basis to think so. He’s not trustworthy, certainly not very reliable, but he looks at Andrew like he’s _looking at Andrew_ , like he sees him, like he could understand and relate to anything Andrew told him about his life. (Well, _almost_ anything.)

So Andrew doesn’t want him to go. He wants him to stay. Meaning that he has to make sure Neil doesn’t do something stupid enough to get caught. “Alright,” Andrew says.

“Alright?” repeats Neil, confused.

“I’ll make sure you don’t get caught.”

Neil narrows his eyes at him and tilts his head slightly. Finally he asks, “And what do you want in return?”

“I want you to stay.”

“Stay… here?” Neil looks around the bedroom.

Andrew rolls his eyes. “Not here _specifically_ , idiot. Here in the house. Wherever you go when you’re being creepy.”

Neil scowls. “I’m not creepy.”

“Whatever. I have things to do, so-“ He flicks his hands at Neil in a shooing motion.

Neil rolls his eyes but stands anyway. “I know you don’t have anything to do.”

“If only you could write a book about all the things you know, dazzle us with your knowledge.”

“It’d be more interesting than Harry Potter, probably.” Andrew huffs, and Neil looks a weird mix of surprise and soft delight before he tames his expression and exits, leaving Andrew to sit around and do nothing until he goes to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by the 160 count of green apple Jolly Ranchers I've been subsisting off of for three days.
> 
> Shout out to YellowGoingBlue for beta-ing and being generally wonderful.
> 
> Updates are going to start being on weekends, so either Saturdays or Sundays!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Halloween episode.
> 
> TW in this chapter for nonchalant but nongraphic references to child abuse, and brief description of sexual abuse.

It is a secret, held closely to his chest, that Andrew loves Halloween.

He’s only gotten to go trick-or-treating a few times, but even without that, Halloween is good. He loves seeing the decorations assemble piece by piece in people’s yards over the course of the month, loves the costumes displayed in stores, loves how everything turns a childish type of spooky. He loves reading _Sleepy Hollow_ in school, and he loves the shitty Disney Channel Halloween movies that air through the last part of October.

Which is why when Neil says in a derisive tone, “I hate Halloween,” Andrew considers strangling him.

Instead, he glares at him. “You are an insufferable brat, and I hope you drown in your soup.”

Neil rolls his eyes and slurps obnoxiously from his spoon. They’re sitting in the den, on the squashy burnt orange couch Stella bought when she decided to decorate. (Every room has a theme; the den’s is warm colors, hence the ugly couch.) Andrew and Neil sit sideways on opposite ends, watching TV. They’re small enough that they can stretch their legs out across the cushions and still not touch.

Neil, who has been suffering from a mild bout of the flu, cradles the bowl of tomato soup Andrew had forced upon him minutes ago to his chest. “Why do we have to watch this? It’s boring.”

“I have the remote,” Andrew reminds him, watching the flying vampire cows on the screen.

“Why can’t we watch something else? Like-”

“Like what? This is the best thing on.”

“I don’t know. Flip it to the sports channel, there might be a game on.”

Andrew can feel disgust and disbelief battle for dominance on his face as he looks at Neil. “Absolutely not,” he says.

Neil makes a face that would best be described as a spiteful pout. “This is boring,” he mumbles one more time before going back to his soup.

Andrew turns back to the screen. “Sports,” he mouths disgustedly, and turns the volume up.

-

The first time Stella touches him is also the first time she receives a call from the principal, a self-important man that vaguely reminds Andrew of the cartoon turtle from Bugs Bunny.

He’s sitting in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs inside the office, ignoring the looks being shot at him by the secretary, when Stella storms in with a cosmic fury he’s never seen around her before. If his mind weren’t repeating a manic litany of _Look, Ma, I’m roadkill! Ha ha ha!_ he’d probably be extremely worried for his well-being. She spares a withering glance for the peeping secretary and bends down to look at Andrew, who avoids her gaze.

She brings both hands up where he can see them and asks, “Andrew? May I see?”

He blinks once, twice. What? Nobody’s ever asked to touch him before. They just assume that since they _can_ they _will_ , like just because he’s a kid he can’t decide what he wants to happen to him. And, honestly? Up until this very moment Andrew hadn’t thought he’d had any way of stopping them.

But suddenly he realizes that if he says _no_ Stella will step away. It’s a freeing thought, but also…

He pauses for just a breath, then exhales and says, “Yeah.”

She places light fingers against his chin and tilts his head up, using her other hand against his unharmed cheek to angle his face in the light. He looks over her shoulder and keeps his eyes fixed there as she surveys the damage.

He’s had worse. He’s just keen to get the punishment over with.

Really, though, it wasn’t his fault for once. Jake Malone is a massive eighth grader that towers over smaller-than-average Andrew. Jake Malone, the son of one of the members of the school board, is used to having people do what he says when he says it and is definitely not used to anyone talking back.

Classic bully. Andrew should really be smarter by now.

Not that he did anything stupid, really. He wasn’t the kid that finally decided to grow a spine and shove a thirteen-year-old giant back in the middle of a crowded hallway. Derek was that stupid, though. Derek is a puny kid even skinnier than Andrew, and his entire aura screams _abuse_. Andrew can see it even if everyone else ignores it. And for some reason, seeing teeny tiny Derek getting shoved loudly into the lockers just for fighting back for once ignited a fury within Andrew that he forgets sometimes he has, and before he knew it he was shoving Jake Malone in his gut hard enough to make him stagger back across the entire width of the hallway.

Jake Malone had looked at him with utter surprise and then proceeded to pulverize the shit out of his face.

Stella surveys the damage and sighs. The majority of the left side of his face will be a swollen, colorful mess when he wakes up tomorrow, and his split lip will be a pain in the ass until it heals. His head is killing him slowly, and the aftermath of the adrenaline rush is making his hands shake, but he meets her eyes briefly and mumbles, “Sorry.”

Before she can respond the door to the office is opening and Principal Cecil himself is showing out Jake Malone and Jake Malone Sr. Stella draws herself up to her full height, which seems a lot more considerable with the hard look on her face, and says, “Is this the boy that beat Andrew all to hell?”

Her commanding voice gives all three of them pause before the turtle opens his mouth and says something stupid that really pisses Stella off, and then Jake Malone Sr. cuts her off (mistake number one) to state something inane like, “My boy was defending himself against that maniac of yours!”

Andrew scoffs inwardly at the idea of belonging to Stella. He expects her to correct him, but she surprises the breath out of him for the second time today.

She pauses, takes a deep breath. Andrew, nonsensically, pictures the waves at the beach receding far out to the ocean. And then she proceeds to meticulously tear the lives of Principal Cecil, Jake Malone Sr., and Jake Malone Jr. apart. It’s the most skilled and powerful dressing down Andrew has ever seen, and he realizes again what a force of nature his foster mother is.

He ends up getting out of school for the rest of the week for medical reasons instead of as a disciplinary action. Jake Malone gets two weeks of suspension for excessive and unnecessary force. Stella walks out of the office with her shoulders square and her head high, and Andrew, struck dumb, trails painfully after her.

The car ride is silent until Andrew says, halfway home, “Remind me to never make you that mad.”

Stella breathes out through her nose. “They were trying to make it seem like you deserved punishment for getting the shit beat out of you. And you don’t. You’re a good kid, Andrew.”

 _Huh. That’s new._ No one’s ever called him ‘good’ before. It kills the snarky response crouching on his tongue, and he stares out the windshield in silence for the rest of the drive.

-

Neil comes in while Andrew’s looking at his bruised ribs in the mirror. Andrew doesn’t even notice until he’s startled by a sympathetic hiss from behind, and he whirls around, reaching for his shirt, but it’s all the way on his bed.

The other boy’s mouth drops open when he catches sight of his face. “Jesus _Christ_ , Andrew.”

Andrew scoffs. “Shut up. I’ve had worse.”

Neil marches over and grabs his chin, tilting his head down so he can look at the slew of bruises across Andrew’s face. Andrew keeps his eyes trained over the top of his head and crosses his arms over his chest uncomfortably.

He doesn’t like being shirtless in front of anyone, and he really doesn’t like people having their hands on him, but it’s weird if he makes a big deal out of it, right? Boys aren’t supposed to care about being shirtless, right? If he wants to look normal, he just has to grit his teeth and bear it.

“Why’d they hit you?” Neil asks softly, and, _boy, doesn’t that say a lot about him_ , Andrew thinks unkindly.

“What makes you think I didn’t do something wrong?” Andrew shoots back. “Maybe I started it.”

“If you started it, they deserved it,” Neil says, like he knows anything.

“You don’t know me,” Andrew retorts, and jerks his chin away to step around Neil and grab the sweater laying on his bed.

“The other day you caught a lizard in the den and made me open the back door for you so you could ‘set it free’ outside. Which were your exact words, by the way.”

“Shut up,” he says again, muffled because his head isn’t through the high collar of the sweater yet. “I don’t like bullies. So I shoved one.”

“And he turned your face into ground beef,” Neil finishes, just as Andrew’s head pops out of its previous entrapment.

Andrew makes a face at him, and immediately regrets it. He flops down onto his bed and grabs the sack of blue slush Stella had given him, laying it gently across the left side of his face. His nose still smarts, but he doesn’t think it’s broken, though twin dark circles under his eyes are a definite possibility in the morning.

He closes his eyes and breathes out, relaxing into his pillow. The ibuprofen and ice pack aren’t doing enough to dull the pain, and it’s honestly annoying. Andrew’s no stranger to pain so it’s not a bother, but the fact that he can’t get his mind off the throbbing in his skull is aggravating in the extreme.

Neil sighs and makes shuffling sounds like he’s rooting around for something, which irritates Andrew, but not enough to look over. Suddenly the bed next to him dips and he starts, whipping his head around fast enough so that the ice pack falls from his face. Neil is sitting right beside him, crisscross applesauce, and holding out a washcloth.

Andrew looks from the washcloth up to Neil’s face and quirks his right eyebrow.

“You’re not doing it right,” Neil says helpfully. “Put this between your face and the thing.” He doesn’t wait for Andrew to take it himself, instead carefully laying the washcloth over the left side of Andrew’s face under his eye and retrieving the ice pack, putting it down gently over the cloth. “Hold it.”

Andrew reaches up to keep the setup in place. “Know a lot about proper bruise care, huh?” he asks, taking a cheap shot just because he can.

Neil just looks at him blankly for a moment, then hums and looks away. Andrew abruptly feels like he’s gone a little too far. Silence falls between them.

Andrew spends most of his life worrying about himself, a result of his upbringing. No one else will, so he has to. The events of today have him unsettled. Or, not the events so much as the reactions from the people he lives with (which is a weird way to think of it when one of them’s a stowaway). He’s been in plenty of fights before; he knows how to take a punch. He’s a scrawny, short, pretty boy, so of course the kids at school zero in on him, see him as easy prey. (They don’t know how easy.)

But he’s never been- _taken care of_ like this. He’s never had anyone defend him, never had anyone say he doesn’t deserve the swelling of blood under his pale skin, never had anyone show him the proper way to make sure he heals quickly. At best it’s always been a bag of frozen peas and a disappointed look tossed his way. At worst he’d get more bruises added on and no dinner for making them miss work to pick him up from school. At _absolute_ worst-

_Don’t think about that._

So Andrew’s unnerved by the attention Neil’s giving him, by the quiet yet absolute declaration of _You’re a good kid, Andrew._ He’s not, he knows he’s not, but why does his stomach still feel queasy and fluttery?

Just as the silence starts to feel tangible, Neil turns back to him and removes the washcloth and ice pack. _He’s touching me a lot today_ , Andrew thinks, and then releases that thought into the ether. “It’s been fifteen minutes,” Neil tells him. “That’s how long you’re supposed to leave it on before you take it off, and don’t put the ice pack directly on your eye.”

“Thanks, doc.”

Neil only replies with a withering look and hops off the bed. “Take a nap. It’s not like you have to rush to get your homework done or anything.”

That gives Andrew pause. “What do you mean?”

Neil’s head tilts a little to the side, as if confused. “Weren’t you suspended? For fighting?”

 _Oh._ He’d had to ask; he’s paranoid sometimes that Neil is secretly omniscient. He doesn’t understand how Neil knows the things he does sometimes, because Andrew _knows_ he talks about some things with Stella when they’re out of the house. “Not technically. But Stella verbally abused the principal until he gave me the rest of the week off. It was impressive.”

Neil smirks. “I almost feel sorry for the guy.” He steps to the door and suggests again that Andrew rest up, and then slips out the door.

-

Stella suggests that they go out to the movies the next day. Andrew’s a little surprised that anyone would willingly stand next to him in public with the state his face is in. The bruises are a hundred times worse than they were yesterday. Neil is right. He _does_ look like ground beef.

They end up making a day of it. They catch a matinee showing of the Jesse James movie that came out recently, and then spend a few hours walking around a park near their neighborhood in the shade.

“I’ve never really gotten a chance to enjoy being outside,” Stella tells him. “We can go someplace else if you want.”

He doesn’t. “There isn’t much else to do,” he points out. “This is okay. It’s nice. The weather. Since it’s not too hot out, I mean.”

She smiles and doesn’t call him out on his slip. “I’m from the Atlantic coast, originally,” she confides. “At this time of year it would be nonstop gray and rainy. And cold. I can’t believe it’s actually October right now.”

“Why did you come to California?” he asks.

She looks at him, face abruptly serious, and he allows himself a moment to mourn the good mood he’s managed to kill. “I needed a change of pace,” she says. “California is very far away from where I come from.”

He expects a rebuke for prying. When he realizes it isn’t coming, he relaxes a little bit. “California’s completely different from the east coast,” he babbles, just to fill the empty space. “I mean, I’m assuming. I’ve been all over California, but never out of it. But that’s what everyone says. That it’s completely different.” He’s so fucking smooth.

Stella looks over and smiles at him, and he’s suddenly intensely angry that he’s acting like he’s trying to- impress her, or whatever. He’s not. She’s just another foster, and, sure, she’s been nicer than all the others, but that won’t last. She’ll either end up showing how bad she really is or she’ll end up sending him back, just like everyone else has.

His negative thoughts are cut short when she asks, “How many other families have you had?” Her face is one of polite interest that Andrew can’t find a lie in. He speaks the truth before he can convince himself not to.

“I’ve been in twenty-four foster homes.”

She stops in the middle of the path and gazes at him with a face of blank surprise. “Twenty-four?” He nods. “But you’re only eleven.”

“Twelve in a couple weeks,” he reminds her. She just keeps staring at him until he’s annoyed enough to say, “Stop. I don’t need you feeling sorry for me-”

“I don’t.” Her face is blank and her eyes are careful, but something in her voice indicates that she’s telling the truth. That she doesn’t look at him and see a pitiful little creature. “I’m just thinking about how hard it must be to keep moving around so much.”

He shrugs, uncomfortable, and starts walking away from her down the path again. “I don’t care. It’s been like this ever since I can remember, so.”

Stella hums and walks alongside him in silence. He regrets starting this conversation, regrets telling her as much as he has, regrets the feeling of regret itself. He can feel something dark and slimy make it way up his esophagus, and right before it crawls out of his mouth, Stella gasps and says, “Candied apples, Andrew, look!”

Andrew looks; to the side of the sidewalk a little ways ahead of them sits a black stand with a large orange jack-o-lantern cutout pasted to the front. An old couple apparently in charge of it sit behind the counter, calling out to passersby and gesturing to the laid out trays of candied and caramel apples.

When they get close enough, the old woman’s smile melts into a look of concern. “Oh dear, what happened to your face?”

Stella answers for him. “Got into a fight at school.” Her mouth twists sympathetically in a weirdly parental show of support.

The old woman pushes her red glasses down the bridge of her nose to better peer at him and the old man gets to his feet. He looks the very image of grandfatherly: white T-shirt tucked into high-waisted pants with suspenders holding them up, short white stubble covering his head, liver spots on hands that pick up a tray of apples to offer to Andrew. “Go on, boy,” he says kindly. “You deserve a little something sweet after getting beat to a pulp.”

“Francis!” the old woman says, smacking him lightly in the side. “Don’t listen to him, dear, but do have an apple. Your poor face must be smarting something fierce.”

His poor face _is_ smarting something fierce, actually, so after a nod from Stella he takes a red candied apple and bites into it. He hates eating things like this, but it tastes good, so he mumbles a _thanks_ and takes another bite.

“If you’re ever in another fight, son,” the old man says, leaning down a little to look Andrew in the eye, “just kick ‘em in the groin.”

“Francis-” the woman groans.

“There’s no such thing as fightin’ fair, and especially since you’re such a little thing, you gotta work every advantage you got.”

“Please excuse my husband, he was raised by wolves,” the woman says in a long-suffering tone.

“Please excuse my wife,” Francis says, smiling. “She’s too much of an angel for this world.”

Stella laughs. “Thank you for the apple, you two are very kind.”

The woman waves her hand. “Not at all, dear. We’ve nothing better to do in our old age so we come here around the holidays and give out little treats we’ve made. Just to keep the neighborhood friendly, you know?”

“Donna wishes things could go back about fifty years to when neighbors were always talking to each other and coming over for tea, constant visiting and gossiping,” Francis teases, collapsing back into his chair.

“Oh hush, you,” Donna says, swatting him on the shoulder this time. She turns back to Andrew and Stella. “Fran and I are here every Thursday afternoon, so if you two are ever around, don’t be afraid to come say hi.” She pronounces ‘Thursday’ like ‘Thurs-dee’.

Stella says their farewells, and Andrew thanks them again, and then they continue on their way. They walk in silence for a moment before Stella remarks, “They seemed… idyllic, don’t you think?”

He thinks of the easy teasing between the old couple and wonders if that’s something he’d ever have one day. Probably not. He looks at Stella out of the corner of his eye. “Is that something you want?”

She hums, considering. That was something that Andrew had taken a while to get used to. When he and Stella talk, she treats him with as much consideration and respect as she would another adult. She doesn’t brush his words or questions off or talk to him like he’s wasting her time. She’s the first person who’s ever treated him this way. Like she respects him.

“No,” she answers finally. “I can see the appeal in it, but.” She pauses. “I’m past wanting that now, if that makes sense?” Andrew nods, even though he doesn’t really understand. “It just doesn’t hold any appeal for me anymore. I’m content, and I know I’ll continue to be content.” She smiles down at him. “What about you?”

“Nah,” he answers flippantly. “Girls have cooties.”

Stella laughs at that, a genuinely amused full-belly laugh. It’s the first time he’s heard her actually laugh instead of a chuckle or mere huff of breath, and he’s suddenly aware of the place where his fingernails turn into skin.

“You know you’re brushing your teeth as soon as we get home, right?” she asks as they near the entrance to the park.

He sighs, but takes a large bite of his apple and says obnoxiously around it, “Affirmative, General.” She snorts at him.

It’s nice.

-

Halloween that year falls on a Wednesday. Andrew had been wanting to have an all-night movie marathon and stay up late watching scary movies with Neil, but Stella insists he needs to sleep so that he can be alert for school the next day.

He has his movie night two days later on Friday instead. Stella takes him by Blockbuster and rents as many movies as he wants, which is more than he’ll ever watch in one night, but she allows his optimism. She doesn’t let him get every movie he wants, though.

“ _The Exorcist_? Absolutely not.”

“But it’s, like, a horror classic. And I haven’t seen it yet.”

“Watch it when you’re a teenager and not a moment before.”

She also nixes _The Texas Chainsaw_ _Massacre_ , _Hellraiser_ , _Saw_ , and another movie Andrew’s never heard of before. “These are all terrible and gory, you’ll have nightmares if you watch them. Put them back.”

He scowls but doesn’t argue and returns to the section marked _Horror_ , where he puts them back. But then he looks around discreetly to make sure he’s hidden from the cameras and Stella’s careful gaze, and opens the case to the unknown movie and stuffs the DVD in the waistband of his pants before shelving the empty case.

He may have a small history of shoplifting, but he’s only been caught twice and never arrested. He doesn’t feel bad about it. You have to do what you can to survive, and at least this will be returned later.

Stella peeks her head down the aisle and says, “If you’re not any quicker than this then we won’t have time to get snacks.”

He shakes his head. “I’m done.”

-

Andrew and Neil are in the den without fear of discovery, since Stella decided to retire to her bedroom early that night with a reminder that should Andrew need anything, he’s welcome to come knock. They are comfortably settled on the ugly couch with plenty of blankets and pillows, a large bowl of extra buttery popcorn between them. They pop in the stolen movie first.

It’s alright, just a shitty Halloween movie about a dumb kid who somehow manages to befriend Satan and go on a killing spree- up until the point where the sister mistakes Satan for her boyfriend and…

The Satan part isn’t scary unless you believe in the whole Christianity thing, which Andrew doesn’t. But the sister is trying to say _no_ and Satan’s pushing her up against a wall, and Andrew suddenly can’t breathe. He watches the onscreen Satan grab the girl around the throat and can feel the fingers of a different devil wrap entirely around his own neck, can hear low chuckling right next to his ear as his throat works to get air in-

The TV screen suddenly goes black and the room is thrust into darkness. The only sound is a too-loud, ragged inhale. _Is that me?_ Andrew wonders.

“Andrew?” Neil asks, next to him in the dark. The TV flashes back on, but on a different input so the room is bathed in a blue glow. Andrew turns to meet Neil’s wide, wide eyes. “I don’t want to watch that one anymore,” he says eventually.

Andrew wonders if Neil’s only saying that for his sake. Later he’ll be angry at himself for not being able to keep his cool long enough to just sit through a goddamn _movie_ , but right now he doesn’t care. “Okay,” he says, voice little better than a croak.

“Do you- can we watch Monster House?”

Andrew could make fun of him for wanting to watch a kids’ movie. He could insist that they finish this, act like it has no effect on him despite the way his throat clicks when he swallows. But there’s something in Neil’s eyes that isn’t something Andrew knows, but it’s a relative of old terror all the same.

Andrew nods.

Neil gets up to switch out the movies, then puts it on the correct input and presses play. The animation and dull colors sooth Andrew as they simultaneously make him feel foolish for being such a baby. About fifteen minutes in, Neil whispers, like there’s anyone but the two of them in the room, “Andrew?”

Andrew grunts in response and shoves a handful of popcorn in his mouth.

“Can we share your blanket? It’s warmer than mine.”

Andrew squints over at him. Neil is curled into a ball with his blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Andrew is almost entirely engulfed in the comforter he’d taken from his bed upstairs apart from his head. He sighs and rearranges, holding out half of the blanket with an arm. “Fine.”

Neil crawls over, bringing the popcorn bowl with him, and settles next to Andrew, who arranges the blanket around Neil’s bony shoulders until they’re both wrapped up with only their heads sticking out. “Okay?” Neil asks.

Andrew grunts again and turns back to the movie. The rest of the night goes by like that, Andrew making Neil get up to switch out movies and Neil settling back down next to him, an added warmth close enough to feel but not quite touching.

Andrew can breathe.

-

His birthday passes. It’s not a day he particularly cares about celebrating. He’s gotten a birthday cake a few times in the past, but he’s never really cared to have a party or had anyone to invite to one even if he did. Beyond having another year of life under his belt, it feels like a regular Sunday.

Stella takes him out to lunch to an Italian place he’d expressed interest in once. They talk about school, and whether aliens had already come to Earth and were hiding amongst humans.

When they get home, Andrew retreats to his room, where Neil finds him a little while later. “So,” he says impishly, climbing up on Andrew’s bed to sprawl next to him. “Feel especially old yet? Frail? Like you’re about to break a hip?”

“It’s amazing,” Andrew replies without looking up from his book. “You get less funny with each passing day.”

The smaller boy snorts and tilts his head to see the cover of what Andrew is reading. He wrinkles his nose. “You’re _still_ reading Harry Potter?”

Andrew hums.

“But that book was so boring.”

Andrew shrugs. “Might as well finish the series.”

“Oh, is that the last book?” Neil sits up on his elbows.

Andrew nods absentmindedly, and starts when the book is snatched from his hands.

“I’m gonna read the last page to you,” Neil informs him, already on the other side of the room. He starts flipping through the pages Andrew hasn’t read yet, and Andrew launches off the bed at him. “Ooh, there’s an epilogue!” Neil chirps, evading Andrew easily.

“Neil, come on!” Andrew manages to hook an arm across Neil’s chest and reaches over for the book.

“Oh look at that, every character becomes a flight attendant, the end,” he snickers, and stretches his arm out straight to avoid Andrew’s grabby hands.

“Liar,” Andrew accuses, ramming his knee into the back of Neil’s and sending them both tumbling to the floor. Andrew holds him down and finally reaches the book, slamming it closed and tossing it back up onto the bed, then flops backwards on top of Neil, who is still laughing, though now a little breathlessly under Andrew’s weight. “You are such a pain in the ass.”

Neil’s giggles calm down into deep breaths that Andrew can feel where he lays across Neil’s belly. “You only ever read when you’re sad,” he says, like he’s telling a secret. “You shouldn’t be sad on your birthday.”

Andrew goes still. He doesn’t- does he? He thinks back to all the times he’s picked up a book when his head wouldn’t stop making him _think_ about certain things, and _crap. I’m predictable._ “What would you know?” he scoffs. “You’re, like, eight years old.”

Neil huffs. “I’ll be eleven in a couple months.” He pokes at Andrew’s side, and he twists away off Neil to avoid it.

“Could have fooled me,” Andrew snipes, relocating to the bed and collapsing onto it. “And I’m not sad.”

“Well, you’re not happy.”

He’s never been happy. “What’s there to be happy about? It’s just another day.”

Neil sits up to peer at him over the edge of the mattress. “Another day that shows you’ve lived another year.”

Andrew gives him a flat look. “Spectacular.”

“I’m serious, Andrew,” Neil says, and Andrew looks him in the eye. “You’ve made it another year, you’ve survived. That’s important.”

There’s a small something in his throat. He swallows it down. “Everyone else has managed to not die for many years, I think this is hardly something to celebrate.”

Neil gives him a look like he knows Andrew is going to keep evading, but lets him anyway. “Wanna play Uno?”

“I _want_ you to stop being a pest,” he replies, but reaches over and gets the cards out anyway.

-

Time passes. Stella and Andrew have a nontraditional, very informal Thanksgiving involving Chinese takeout and Jeopardy! reruns. That Christmas break is the most relaxing one he can remember having. Going back to school is, for the first time, a disappointment.

He still has nightmares. A memory like his will do that to you. But he takes a little comfort in the fact that Neil has issues as well. He wakes up flailing sometimes, the few times he falls asleep on the couch where he and Andrew are watching a movie.

Neil turns eleven in January and has a three-day meltdown that culminates in a nasty panic attack on his actual birthday. Andrew sits through it with him, ordering him to _quit it, Neil, just breathe_ in a calm voice while his heart jackrabbits in his chest. Andrew doesn’t ask about it afterwards while Neil is still shaking, only looks at where Neil’s hand is gripping the fabric of Andrew’s T-shirt sleeve and says, “Come on. It’s a day worth celebrating, I thought?” It’s mocking enough that Neil rolls his eyes.

Andrew starts going to the park on Thursdays to visit Francis and Donna. He has nothing to do after school, and the monotony is starting to grate on him. (And isn’t that a thought? The fact that his life is _safe_ and _calm_ enough that he gets bored.) So he goes and sits with them for a couple hours after school each week. They seem glad enough for the company.

Life develops a routine: school, home, dinner with Stella, movie nights with Neil every now and then. They hang out fairly regularly, if not every day. He’s stayed in houses with other kids in the past, but a number of factors prevented him from ever having what one would consider a _friend_. It’s a little lame when Andrew thinks of it like that, how Neil’s his first actual friend, but it’s the truth.

He’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop. He’s lived with Stella Josten for eight months now, breaking his record for longest time spent in one placement. It’s been- nice, great even, but he knows it won’t last because nothing good has ever lasted before. The anxiety, the waiting for it all to go bad like usual, wears on him.

The fact is, he didn’t ask for this. He didn’t beg and pray for some savior to come and whisk him away into a happy little family. He doesn’t want that, doesn’t want a _mom_ , for god’s sakes. He doesn’t want to be the starry-eyed little orphan kid that gets a happy ending, because he knows that doesn’t happen. He learned that five years ago, and he is reminded of it every day.

He lets himself be bitter and resentful, lets himself think the worst about Stella when she’s not there. But then they’ll have dinner, or she’ll come by his room to ask how his day went, and she’ll _smile_ at him, and he can’t-

It hurts, almost, whenever he lets himself dwell on it. It’s different than the kind of pain he’s used to, but present all the same. It hurts because he knows it won’t last, and he lays awake at night thinking about how it’s gonna feel when Stella stops smiling at him, stops making food with him, stops acting like she _cares_ about him. He’s preparing himself for it, but he can’t make himself feel anything other than the sick dread pooling in his gut.

Andrew is twelve, and tired, and he wants this.

He’ll end up doing something eventually. He’s always in trouble somehow. He hasn’t been arrested yet but he doesn’t doubt it’ll happen someday. Eventually he’ll become too much for Stella and she’ll realize that she could have her happy ending, find her own Francis, and have her own kid. And then he’ll go back to before.

On the off chance he doesn’t royally sabotage his own life, there’s still something in the way. Andrew’s initial impression of Stella remains: she has secrets. Not a big deal, everyone has secrets, Andrew should know. But this feels different. Bigger, more important.

He starts to wonder about Neil, as well. No doubt that the boy himself is stitched together with lies; a runaway orphan, hiding in the walls of a stranger’s house? But there are things about him that don’t add up. A new shirt Andrew’s never seen before. A haircut here and there. The fact that he’s gaining weight and losing the shadows under his eyes, the opposite of what should be happening to a homeless kid.

He leaves during the day. Andrew never catches him, but he knows he’s gone because every weekday at five o’clock he knocks on Andrew’s door and they pass the time together until he goes downstairs for dinner. Andrew asks him about it one day.

“You’re gone during the day, right?” he asks, not looking up from the math homework he really should be paying attention to. He’s sitting at his desk while Neil lounges on his bed, folding index cards into frogs.

He hums, and then looks up. “Wait, what?”

He repeats himself slowly, as condescending as possible. “You are gone during the day, right?”

“Yes. Why?”

He shrugs. “Just wondering. Where do you go?”

“School?” he replies, dragging the syllables out and turning it into a question.

Now Andrew does look up. “You go to school?”

Neil squints at him. “Yes?”

“How?”

“By… walking there?” He gives Andrew a bemused look and goes back to folding.

And that- there’s no way Neil could have managed to enroll himself in school. Not at his age, it’s too suspicious. Unless he’s going to the same school he’d gone to when he lived with him parents, but surely his parents are filed as missing persons? Meaning he had to have managed to find a different school…

It doesn’t add up. It doesn’t add up, which means Neil is lying to him about at least one thing, and- oh. That’s disappointment piercing through his chest. He’d almost forgotten what that feels like.

-

It’s early April when Andrew finds an envelope from a nearby private school in the trash. It’s empty, so there’s no telling just what the envelope had once contained.

He doesn’t understand. They’d never even discussed Andrew switching to a private school next year. He wonders if it has something to do with the older kids bullying him at school. He asks Stella about it that day.

“Oh, that,” she says, waving a hand absentmindedly where she stirs the spaghetti sauce at the stove. “I was looking into it at the beginning of the school year, deciding whether it would be better for you to go there. I was going through old papers and it was in there so I threw it away.”

It makes sense, and she’s nonchalant enough that it’s not a big deal. Andrew doesn’t believe her.

-

A lot of little things add up, things that would have gone unnoticed, but Andrew notices everything because he’s grown up having to and he remembers everything because apparently that’s a suitable punishment for whatever sin he’s managed to commit.

Neil’s clothes are never dirty. There has never been an instance where Stella nearly catches Neil; they’re always conveniently in different parts of the house at any given time. Stella never mentions anything going missing. Neil knows certain things, unknowingly references certain conversations that Andrew has with Stella even though those conversations had happened outside of the house, by design.

It all adds up, and it makes something ugly crawl up from the pit of his gut until it’s clawing at the back of his teeth to get out. It feels like betrayal, oddly enough, and it poisons him until he’s sure his blood has turned to sludge. He sits on it for about a week, trying to act normal, until it gets to be too much.

It’s a little after ten at night when it becomes too much. The foolish hurt and betrayal have swirled around in him until they became a tornado intent on nothing but destruction. He feels it in his chest as he marches downstairs towards the kitchen, where he knows Stella will be, because Stella always has a cup of tea before she goes to bed.

That’s one truth, at least.

He’s in the kitchen faster than he thinks it usually takes to get there, but he’s not sure over the pounding in his heart. He stands at the foot of the stairwell and stares at Stella until she notices him with a bemused frown.

“Andrew, I thought-”

“When are we going to talk about Neil?” he interrupts, more calmly than he feels.

He hates this. He hates being lied to, looking foolish, being the butt of the joke. Part of him is ready to tear everything apart, burn down everything he thought was good because it’s all a _lie_ , while the other, bigger, part whispers snidely _What, you thought you deserved better? Broken toys get thrown away, you know that. Why would you expect better?_

He is foolish, he knows. He still wants, despite the long list of facts burned into his brain. The world is full of pain and monsters who bite and claw you to shreds, but he still thought for some reason that he could keep just a few good people.

He was wrong, and it burns him.

Stella watches him for a while, studying his face until the silence weighs on the whole room like a wool blanket. He doesn’t know what he expects, for her to yell or deny or hit him (finally). Instead, she surprises him, like she always does.

She walks over, and sits at the table, motioning to the seat across from her. “Right now,” she says.

“Right now?” he repeats, more distrusting than he’s been since school started.

She nods once, sharp. “Yes. I’m going to tell you everything you want to know about me and my son.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Jesse James movie technically came out in September but the October movies for 2007 weren't any Andrew would be interested in.
> 
> I'm so sorry this took so long. Serotonin is a commodity that continually eludes me. Thank you to everyone who comments, I read all of them and they make writing so much easier, I couldn't do it without y'all.
> 
> I'd like to be optimistic and say this will update next weekend but I'm not making any promises. It will get done though. We still have years of these boys' lives to cover so I'm not abandoning. This fic may turn into a bigger monster than it needs to be.
> 
> Shoutout to the wonderful YellowGoingBlue for reading the first part of this and convincing me to keep going
> 
> If you want to talk about anything you can find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/1980sghostboy) where I continually tweet as I write and [tumblr](http://www.1980sghostboy.tumblr.com). Thank you for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: descriptions of scars and past evisceration, vague mention of nonconsensual marital intercourse, and all the warnings that come with our boy Andrew Joseph Doe

Neil is sitting in the hallway, facing Andrew’s bedroom door. Andrew knows this because he checked under the door after the knocking stopped, and in the inch of space above the floor he could see Neil’s toes digging into the mint green carpet like they were trying to take root. Now Andrew lies back on his bed in the dark, an arm flung over his eyes.

Andrew doesn’t want to see Neil, because Neil is a liar, and Andrew doesn’t…

He doesn’t know how to feel, really. There’s a lot of new information, information he’s not even sure he should _believe_ (the mafia? Who the fuck-) and he needs to sit and think, which he can’t do if Neil’s pestering him with his explanations and apologies that Andrew doesn’t really want to listen to in the first place.

He doesn’t care if he’s being uncharitable. Neil is a liar.

_“What do you know about Neil?”_

_“Only what he told me.” A pause. “He’s an orphan and a runaway.”_

_A small thud of china against the tabletop. “That’s half right, at least.”_

Half of Andrew tells the other half that it shouldn’t be so upset, that it’s understandable that Neil couldn’t tell the truth. Andrew doesn’t know whether that’s the more adult part of him or the childish part of him, and then idly wonders why he’s assigning ages to concepts of consciousness.

_“Neil isn’t an orphan. Both his father and I are still alive.” It feels like even the earth itself stops spinning, but Stella continues after a moment so it’s probably only Andrew feeling that way. “He and I both are what you could consider runaways, though.” A pause, a sip of tea. “Neil’s father is an infamous gangster in Maryland, and about three years ago I took Neil and ran. We’ve been running ever since.”_

The familiar feeling of betrayal thrums through Andrew. He hates being lied to.

_“Why stop?”_

_The longest silence yet. Stella chews on her words. “It hasn’t been… We’ve been running and hiding, and he’s still found us numerous times. Europe wasn’t far away enough. And it was too hard on Neil. I opted for a change of pace.”_

_Quiet, and then, “You’re going on the offensive.”_

_She smiles the same way she always does when Andrew shows how intelligent he is and doesn’t respond._

It’s past midnight when Neil loses his patience and bangs his fist on the door, making Andrew jump. “Andrew! Come on, pl- let me explain, that’s all I’m asking.”

Andrew is on his feet wrenching the door open before he realizes he has any plan to. “Explain?” he hisses at Neil’s surprised face. “Now you want to explain? After you’ve had- I have been here almost a _year_ , and you have been lying to my face the entire time.”

Oh. It’s anger he’s feeling. That’s good to know.

“I had to!” he protests. “I couldn’t tell you the truth-”

“The truth was the only thing I asked for!” Andrew blurts out, and he shoves Neil back a step.

Neil just grabs onto Andrew’s wrists. “I wanted to stay!” he yells. “If you knew the truth we would’ve had to leave again!”

Andrew rips from Neil’s grip and doesn’t have anything to say in response, so he just stares at him. Neil’s eyes are wide, but not fearful or sad. He doesn’t look an ounce repentant, and in the orange light of Andrew’s desk lamp bleeding out into the hallway, his face seems to glow, like he’s on fire on the inside.

He hasn’t apologized, and Andrew knows it’s because he’s not sorry at all. That’s the fact that makes Andrew step back and motion for Neil to come in. When the door is shut behind them, Andrew turns back to him. “Hurry up and say what you wanted to say.” He’s still angry, and not feeling very kind right now.

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath, like he’s about to jump off a high-dive into the middle of the ocean, and then he pulls his shirt over his head.

Andrew has about a millisecond to wonder _what is this kid doing?_ before what his eyes are seeing is transmitted into his brain and he thinks, _Oh shit_ , because what his eyes are seeing is _scars_. Covering about two-thirds of Neil’s body are scars: thick ones, dark ones, raised ones, ones that dipped into the skin. A wicked curve nestles at the base of his throat, and Andrew imagines that someone had tried to bring a knife down, intent on slicing open Neil’s sternum, before he’d twisted away at the last second. Not very far from it lies a messy patch of raised skin, so light in color that it’s almost pink.

Neil notices where he’s looking. “Bullet wound.” Andrew glances sharply back at him. “It wasn’t that serious, I was just lucky I had a vest on. Otherwise there’d be more than just the one.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal, and Andrew realizes it’s not, to Neil. He’s been shot, been tortured by the looks of it, and doesn’t show any emotion about it at all.

There are more: raised up patches of skin; thin, white faded scars that Andrew wonders about because they look far older than three years; a dark line that slashes precisely through Neil’s left nipple like it was planned; and the one that Andrew stares at longer than all the others. A thick, ropy scar that stretches from Neil’s left hip to the bottom of his opposite ribcage, curving under his bellybutton. It’s darker than all the others, and ugly as hell. The discoloration extends to the skin around it, coloring the whole area a light plum shade. Andrew only realizes he’s reached out to touch when he catches sight of his hovering fingers, and quickly jerks his hand back down.

Neil, seeing this, says, “You can touch it. I don’t care.”

“I’m not touching you when you don’t want me to,” Andrew replies.

Neil rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t matter to me. Just don’t- poke at it, or anything. It’s still sensitive.”

He looks him in the eye for a moment, searching for any hesitation, then brings his hand back up and gently runs his fingers along the length of the scar. “Are you going to tell me how you got this one, too?”

“Are you going to ask?”

“How did you get this one, Neil?”

He’s silent for a moment; Andrew looks back to his face and watches him carefully pick his words. “My father likes to cut people into pieces. It’s his- preferred method, what do you call…?”

“MO,” Andrew offers.

“Yeah, that. They call him the Butcher of Baltimore, because of what he does to people. He uses a cleaver.” Neil’s tone is carefully neutral, his face bland. Andrew doesn’t know whether these facts are so commonplace that they’ve stopped affecting him or that he’s just putting on a brave face to avoid a breakdown. Maybe both.

The thing is, Andrew knows pain. He knows what it’s like to be hit just for existing, and he knows what it’s like to suffer a pain so intense that all you can do is hold on and wait for it to stop. The evidence of injuries littered across Neil’s skin, though, is so staggering that Andrew needs time just to comprehend it. He can’t imagine having to carry around the remnants on your skin like Neil has to, like Neil will for the rest of his life.

“This-” Neil taps a finger next to where Andrew’s are still resting just under the scar “-happened the last time he caught up with us. My mom pulled me back at the last second, but he still got me really deep.” He traces the line from his hip upwards, and Andrew can envision the swing and trajectory of the cleaver as it tore through Neil’s belly.

“Why did you two run in the first place?” he asks suddenly, meeting Neil’s eyes again.

Neil falters. “I don’t- really know. That’s the truth, I swear. The only thing that happened was that I auditioned for a space on an Exy team, and then my mom took me and we ran.”

Andrew withdraws his hand and backs up until he sits on his bed. “Why am I here?”

“As a decoy. If they did find us, they’d see a woman with a foster son, and they’d assume they got wrong information somewhere and wait long enough to double-check at least.”

“Is everything a way to buy more time, or is there an actual endgame here?” Neil just looks at him, and he continues, “Ah, that’s right. Your mother is building her own west coast mafia.”

“I don’t-” Neil sighs. “She doesn’t tell me specifics, and I don’t ask.”

“Why not?”

“She’s kept us alive this whole time. It doesn’t matter to me what we’re doing as long as we stay that way.” He tugs his shirt back over his head.

Andrew watches his scarred body disappear under the shirt, then asks, “How serious was it?” He motions on his own body where the ugly abdominal scar rests on Neil’s.

Neil looks away for a moment, and runs the side of his hand along his belly. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s doing it. “I…” He pauses, and seems to Andrew like he’s trying to decide what to say. “When he cut me, I didn’t know it was that bad. Mom got me out, and we got to the car and got away. I had my hands over it the whole time and only realized something was really wrong when she tried to look at it and my intestines fell out.”

Andrew blinks.

“We had to go to a surgeon my mom knew nearby. No hospitals, that’s one of the rules. It took a little less than an hour to get there, and I had to hold everything that fell out in my lap. I died a couple times that night and it took me a long time to recover.”

Andrew remembers bone-thin, pale wrists and dark shadows under Neil’s blue, blue eyes, and then changes the subject. “What if your father comes for you again? What am I supposed to do?”

“You run.”

He blinks, surprised. “Aren’t I a decoy? Shouldn’t I be the bait or something, whatever gets you two out?”

Neil squints at him as if he’s spectacularly stupid. “You’re a preventative measure. If they come for us anyway, you wouldn’t be able to do anything. If that does happen, you have to get out.”

Andrew is quiet, and then he asks, “Why did you lie to me?” Neil opens his mouth and Andrew makes a sharp cutting motion with his arm as if to slice away the question. “Why did you want to stay so badly?” he asks instead.

Neil opens and closes his mouth once, then says, “I’m tired.” Andrew tilts his head a little at that. “Not- the moving around, the constantly being on guard, always running. I’m tired of it, and I don’t want that to be my whole life.” He looks like he’s in pain, or like he knows pain is coming and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. Andrew realizes he hates that look, even though he hates Neil himself right now. Not a whole lot, but enough. Maybe like halfway.

He continues, “And I know you’re tired too. Don’t even act like you’re not, because I’ve seen the look you get sometimes. If my mom knew that I’d told you, she’d have packed us up and left the same night and you’d have gone to some other place, and I know you didn’t want that.” Okay, maybe he hates Neil more than halfway.

“I couldn’t care less what happens to me,” he says honestly. “Don’t use me as an excuse for your dishonesty.”

“It’s not an excuse, it’s the truth,” Neil replies, scowling. “If you didn’t want to know, you shouldn’t have asked.” He looks away and scratches a hand through his hair, growing somber again. “I don’t want that to be my life,” he repeats, softer, “but I’m not the one who gets to make those choices.” He looks back at Andrew, and Andrew abruptly realizes that whatever choice he makes in light of all this new information will be the deciding factor of whether Stella will cut and run or not.

“We have school tomorrow,” Andrew simply says, pointing a thumb towards his bedroom door, hitchhiker style. He doesn’t give two shits about school. Neil knows, because he stares blankly for a moment longer at Andrew, like the only way to hide his crestfallen expression is to eliminate emotion from his face altogether.

The door clicks shut behind him. Andrew locks it, and stays awake for a few more hours replaying the sound in his mind.

-

Andrew gets up the next morning as if nothing out of the ordinary happened the night before and goes to school. Like normal. He sits through two class periods because homeroom is second period and he has to wait for his homeroom teacher to take daily attendance before he can make his escape. If he is marked absent before homeroom attendance, the school calls the parent before lunch. But this way, an automatic message gets sent to Stella’s voicemail at six in the evening.

It’s almost too easy to take advantage of the underfunded public schools. It’s definitely too easy to actually leave. All it takes is slipping through the kitchens and out one of the doors at the back and he’s free to roam around the entirety of Santa Clara.

There isn’t very much he can do considering he only has two pennies in his pocket, but he wanders around for a while and eventually find himself at a playground designed for toddlers in honor of… war veterans? Whatever. He avoids a couple children running about and shrugs off his backpack, dropping it at his feet as he sits heavily into one of the swings.

He’s been ignoring everything, but now he has time to properly get lost in his head, to sort everything out, but his mind keeps both jumping to and then promptly shying away from the thought of Neil. He doesn’t know how to sort through the overwhelming mess of emotions this entire situation has given him.

He’s never been particularly adept with… feelings. They haven’t been important for the majority of his life. He’s learned by now that he doesn’t really experience them the way other kids his age do. He reacts to some things too differently, and sometimes he doesn’t feel at all. He’d thought that was normal until he’d mentioned it to an old foster and she’d given him a _look_. He was moved to a new placement by the end of the week.

Andrew thinks maybe something in him is wrong. He’s been told that before, but the people who had told him were monsters and liars, so maybe that had been a lie, too. But maybe not.

 _I’m tired._ He knows what Neil meant. He knows what it’s like to look around desperately and beg the world around you to not let _this_ be your life. The world’s never given him an answer, though, and at this point he’s stopped asking. Neil, though, he still has hope, Andrew thinks. A boy who can talk calmly about the time he held his own insides with his bare hands in one moment like it’s no big deal and then the next turn to him with those big, pleading eyes and ask- to stay? Is that what he was even asking?

Andrew’s not the one who makes decisions, he’s the one at the mercy of them. At the mercy of his social worker, of his fosters, of his broken brain, of the monsters still hiding in his bed. No one’s ever asked anything from him when they could just take, and no one’s ever let anything he had to say determine any future outcomes.

_Stella has._

He looks around at the toddlers playing around the park, their mothers keeping an eye on them from their benches. He kicks a foot out and swings gently back and forth.

Yes, Stella has listened to him. She’s let him decide things, let him say no, let him talk to her even when he had nothing of real substance to say and just the urge to get everything inconsequential out of his head. She’s asked his opinion on things, has coaxed it out of him on occasions when he insists it’s not important. He doesn’t want it to mean as much as it does. He wants to be able to just write her off as being like all the others, because he doesn’t want to expect anything out of her.

But Andrew knows how people work. He can tell when someone’s just going through the motions, he can tell when someone’s trying too hard, and he can tell when someone’s lying. He’s known from the start that Stella had secrets. He’s known she was keeping things from him. He can’t feel particularly betrayed when he knew heading into this arrangement that that was how things were.

The thing that _is_ surprising, though, is that she’d told him everything. He doesn’t know why. It would have been easy to come up with something else, definitely would have been far more believable than the truth. But instead, she’d sat across from him and told him everything.

Andrew knows it’s the truth. It’s convoluted and fantastical, and seems too unreal, like a shitty paperback drama that isn’t even sold at most bookstores. Stella could have told him a plethora of other things that would have been more believable, but she’d chosen to go with what Andrew knows to be the truth.

She’d done what she said, and told him everything he wanted to know. And now she’s waiting for him to decide what to do. As is Neil.

Andrew kicks harder with his legs and starts swinging in earnest. Neil is the part that’s harder to think about. He doesn’t want to admit that he feels betrayed, because he doesn’t want to admit, even to himself, that he’d expected better from Neil. He knows it’s stupid to expect anything out of anyone, let alone important things like trust and honesty.

But for some reason, a small, self-sabotaging part of Andrew had eagerly placed Neil in a jar labelled _Different_. That part of Andrew had looked at Neil and thought, _This is a kid who knows what senseless violence looks like, who’s felt pain just so that other people can enjoy his suffering. This is a kid like me._

That’s still true. Neil is a lot like him, even if he’s had his mother protecting him all these years and Andrew’s had no one. They both are intimately familiar with pain, albeit different kinds, but pain all the same. He’d seen what they had in common and for some reason had assumed that he could trust Neil.

A stupid mistake, and now Andrew is paying for it.

_I wanted to stay!_

Doesn’t matter. It does not matter.

_If you knew the truth we would’ve had to leave again!_

Andrew can’t imagine _wanting_ to stay anywhere. ( _Liar_ , a whispering voice accuses in his head.) He’s never wished to stay in any of the places he’s been. His entire life has been living one foot already out the door, not wanting to stay but having no place to leave to. Liminal space stretching the distance of twelve years, existing in it as a changeling no one wants for very long. The threshold of a home is the only part he knows.

He works his legs until he swings as high as the swing allows. At the crest of the swing, the chains go momentarily slack, and his stomach jumps into his throat at the half-second’s worth of weightlessness. He’s afraid of heights, but somehow he’s addicted to the feeling his gut gets every time his feet leave the ground.

 _And I know you’re tired too._ He doesn’t think he is, but he can’t tell for sure. Most of the time he just feels like the second wind you get when you stay up really late and your brain has one last burst of energy before it crashes. He hasn’t crashed yet, though, so he thinks he’s doing fairly well in the grand scheme of things.

The truth is that Neil is his friend. His first friend, his only friend, his best friend, whatever. He hates that Neil lied to him, continuously, for the entire time they’ve known each other. The part that he’s most upset about, though, is that Neil lied for Andrew’s sake. The time for hiding the truth from him to spare him from all the ugliness of the world is long past, and Andrew doesn’t appreciate the effort. He doesn’t like being treated like something that needs to be protected, because he’s _not_. It’s too little, too late; he’s known for five years what people can do just for the sake of cruelty.

He clenches his hands tightly around the chains of the swing, fighting against a sudden onslaught of images and sensations (the ugly bruises on his hips, a pillow smashed tightly against his face-). _No, we’re not thinking about that. Not today. Don’t think about it._

Andrew exhales a long breath through pursed lips and tilts his head back to look up at the sky. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling right now, if this is what people call _sad_. He’s more exhausted than anything, but somehow not in a physical way. He doesn’t know.

-

It’s past two in the afternoon when he digs into his backpack and pulls out his cellphone. The line rings four times before Stella picks up with a calm, “Andrew? Where are you?”

“The War Memorial Playground on Monroe Street.”

“I’m coming to pick you up.”

“I’m at the swings,” he tells her, and hangs up.

-

He sees her walking up, and turns his head back to study the now-deserted playground. It’s naptime now, apparently. All the children are gone.

Stella reaches him and leans against a pole of the swing set, watching him. Andrew realizes suddenly, looking at her long-sleeved blouse, that he’s never seen her wear anything with sleeves that end above the elbow. He wonders if she has the same scars that Neil does.

He understands now why she always looks like she’s in the middle of a war.

She watches him look at the empty playground for a while, then asks, “Ready to go?”

He stands and grabs his backpack and follows her back to the car. After they get in and buckle up, she says, “So the next day after learning you could very easily be a target of a sadistic mob boss, you roam around the city without telling anyone that you’ve decided to do so. You thought that was a good idea.” Her jaw is tight and her eyes are blazing, the only outward indications of her anger, and whatever self-righteous anger he felt five minutes ago dissipates in the face of her fire.

She looks at him out of the corner of her eye, head still turned toward the windshield. “I’m talking to you, Andrew.”

“I needed to think,” he replies tonelessly.

Stella takes a deep breath in and exhales silently before she speaks. “And what did you decide?”

Andrew looks at her carefully. Her hands are tight on the wheel, but her jaw is looser. He doesn’t know if her anger evaporated that quickly or if she just has a better handle on it. “We only talked about Neil,” he answers. “You didn’t say anything about yourself.”

Her eyes flick to his and then away. “You wanted to talk about Neil.”

“You’re his mother.”

“I am.”

“Why did you marry his father?”

She sighs audibly this time. “The short answer is that I had no other options.”

Not good enough. “What’s the long answer?”

She’s quiet for a moment. “You didn’t eat lunch, did you?” He shakes his head. “I know a place nearby. Mexican okay with you?” Andrew nods.

Five minutes later they’re being seated outside at an upstairs patio by a waitress and the owner of the taqueria, who chats amiably with Stella in Spanish. There’s one table on the whole patio, which seems to be a private setting. Andrew studies the orange brick of the building while Stella orders for the both of them.

The owner stays and chats until their food arrives. Andrew, only knowing English, doesn’t follow along, though he realizes the owner is gesturing to him with a smile. Andrew ignores him. He leaves when their small mountain of food comes, and Andrew asks what that was about.

“He said that you’re a very handsome boy.” Andrew must make a face, because she smiles without humor. “He doesn’t mean anything by it. I know exactly what kind of man Ray is, and we wouldn’t be eating here if he was an issue.”

Andrew shrugs and helps himself to the fajitas. “Are you going to answer me?”

She nods, and then swallows the bite she had just taken. “I was born and raised in England, in Devon. My family is part of a syndicate; I was raised ‘in the business’, so to speak. But my parents were old-fashioned, and I wasn’t afforded a lot of agency, growing up. My path had already been decided for me.”

“You didn’t fight that?” Andrew asks. He can’t imagine having someone tell him what to do to such a degree. Sure, he’s more apathetic than he’s realized a lot of kids are at his age, but the thought of not having the choice to decide would chafe him badly.

She holds up a hand and puts up a finger for every new point. “I had no friends, connections, skills, employment history, or money of my own. If I didn’t marry him, my family would have cut me off. So I did, because it was the only thing that ensured my survival, and I started building my own contacts within America.” She pauses so she can cut into her enchilada. “Neil wasn’t planned in the slightest. But Nathan is a forceful man.”

Her tone is so nonchalant and even dry, almost as if she’s telling a joke, that Andrew almost misses her meaning, but then he stares at her as she calmly eats. He can’t fathom speaking so casually about something like that, that kind of- abuse. He wonders at her, how she can portray such an air of power and untouchability after that. “Neil showed me his scars,” he blurts out suddenly.

Stella pauses mid-chew and looks at him, face blank. He can only tell she’s surprised because her eyebrows are slightly higher than usual. “Really?” Andrew nods. “Oh.” She swallows. “That’s… impressive.”

He squints at her.

“Neil hates his scars,” she explains. “He thinks I don’t know, but… He never takes his shirt off in front of anyone if he can help it. He doesn’t like looking at his body at all.”

Andrew recalls the deep breath Neil had taken before pulling his shirt off, like it was the last one he’d be able to take. He hadn’t focused on Neil’s face, instead cataloguing the numerous scars across his torso, and now he’s abruptly glad for it. Andrew doesn’t do well with vulnerability, something he’s sure must have shown through on Neil’s face last night.

“He was asking me to stay,” Andrew tells her.

Stella hums. “And what did you tell him?”

“I told him to go to bed,” he replies honestly.

She blinks at him. Andrew wonders whether Neil actually went to school today or not. “I’m not going to tell you to stay,” she tells him, getting back to the subject at hand. “If you want to leave, you can. I’m not keeping you like a prisoner. Your social worker can find a new placement for you if you want that.”

“What will you do if I leave?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

He pauses, takes a sip of his soda. “My old fosters…” He takes another drink to stall for time. He doesn’t know why he feels the need to tell her anything when they established less than 24 hours ago that she’s little more than a liar, but he does. Maybe it’s the fact that she revealed something so deeply personal that he hadn’t even thought to ask for, or maybe Andrew just wants her to understand for no other reason than that he wants her to. Either way, he opens his mouth and says, “A lot of my old fosters were- bad. You- this has been the best place I’ve been for a long time. I don’t want to leave.”

Stella considers this, considers him. “They beat you.” If it was anyone other than Stella asking, it would sound like a question.

He nods, doesn’t voice the laughing _and then some_ that trickles through his mind.

“If worst comes to worst,” she says firmly, “you have to cut and run.” _Worst_ meaning the Butcher finding them and demonstrating exactly how Neil has all those scars.

It’s the same song and dance Neil had given him the night before. Andrew barely retrains an eye roll. “Okay.”

“Andrew.” She stares into his eyes. “If he finds Neil and me, you have to go. He won’t come after you, but if you’re there, he won’t allow you to survive.”

“Okay. I’ll run,” he lies.

She looks at him a moment longer, but buys it in the end. “Okay.”

They finish all the food. Andrew doesn’t realize how hungry he really was until his belly is full. On the drive home, Stella looks over at him. “Oh, and Andrew?” He hums. She looks at him over her sunglasses. “Skip school again and you’re grounded.”

He scoffs at her, and she smiles.

-

Neil is asleep on the couch when they get home, curled into a ball in the corner like he fell asleep trying to take up as little space as possible. It’s a position familiar to Andrew. _So he didn’t go to school after all._

Andrew sits in the beanbag chair and turns the TV on, eventually settling on an episode of The Most Extreme on Animal Planet. He likes the shitty green animation, and mostly spaces out instead of actively watching.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, knocking things around in his head. Lunch with Stella has left him settled, more than he’s been in the past month. He thinks about how odd it is that he can believe what she says so readily, wonders if he’s just gotten complacent somehow, and then he remembers her unflinching belief in him.

Every time she gets called down to the school because he’s had “disciplinary issues”, she defends him. _Every_ time. She compliments him, in a weird roundabout way that he doesn’t even realize is a compliment until later, after the fact. She hadn’t questioned him when he told her some of his past placements had been abusive.

Andrew’s never had anyone believe in him like this before. He doesn’t know what he could have done to incite such faith from her.

Eventually the noise from the TV disturbs Neil enough that he wakes, slowly. Andrew barely notices a few small shifting noises before he hears a soft, slurred, “Andrew?”

He turns; Neil is leaning up on one elbow, the heel of the same hand rubbing into his eye socket. His jaw cracks as he tries and fails to suppress a yawn. Andrew feels tired just looking at him. “Did you go to school at all today?” he asks.

Neil shakes his head, inhales deeply for an almost-yawn and sighs the air out sleepily. Andrew’s never seen him so soft before. He’s seen Neil wake up only two ways before: bolting upright after a nightmare, chest heaving, or blinking into consciousness with instant awareness.

That awareness comes to Neil after a few moments. Andrew can visibly see the change. His face goes blank with surprise and then immediately closes off, though his eyes still showcase his wariness. He opens his mouth to say something, but Andrew suddenly can’t stand to hear any of the annoyingly earnest things that could fall out of his mouth, so he cuts him off with an uncaring “Are you going to be eating dinner with us from now on?”

Neil closes his mouth and just looks at him for several long moments. Andrew doesn’t like it, so he turns back to the TV and breaks eye contact. But in his peripheral vision, he thinks Neil smiles a tiny bit when he answers, “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I changed origin/description of a couple of the scars, and made the iconic Belly Scar into the life-threatening injury that turned Mary into Stella. I don't know anything about wounds, healing, or scars themselves apart from my dad's non-serious stab scars, so sorry for any inaccuracies.  
> -The playground is a real place, but judging by the pics on google there isn't actually a swing set. (I've never been more west than Roswell in my whole life btw)  
> -I also know nothing about England, specifically Devon.  
> -The beanbag chair is bright yellow, if you were wondering.
> 
> I know this isn't very long or particularly good, and I have a feeling some of you may be disappointed especially since the long wait (the reasons for which I listed in a [post](http://1980sghostboy.tumblr.com/post/160600483904/heres-why-i-havent-been-updating)), but I had to upload something, so! Thank you so much to everyone who keeps up with this and comments, I really do appreciate it. As always, you can find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/1980sghostboy) and [tumblr](http://www.1980sghostboy.tumblr.com), where you can contact me anytime for any reason.


	6. Chapter 6

“If there’s one article of clothing I absolutely _loathe_ ,” Donna declares, “it’s capris.”

Francis turns to her from where he sits in his fold-out lawn chair, a mirror of her own position, and says dryly, “Donna, apple of my eye, I have some bad news for you.” He motions down to her calves, half covered by capris.

She lowers her sunglasses to look at her husband over them. “Why do you think I’m complaining? I’m reminded all over again how much I detest them.”

Andrew’s mouth quirks in amusement. He’s lying spread-eagled on a blanket at their feet, sunglasses on even in the shade of the sycamore they all have claimed. The early July air isn’t too hot, especially with the breeze, but something about the atmosphere just begs laziness, and Andrew has melted into a puddle of half-awake boy on the older couple’s large quilt.

It probably has something to do with the volunteers rushing around the park, Andrew thinks. He’s getting tired just looking at them. They’re hustling to ready the park for the 4th of July celebration later tonight. They remind Andrew of those convoluted chase scenes from old Scooby-Doo cartoons.

Ever since school had let out for the summer, Andrew has, for lack of much else to do, spent a lot of time with the Thorntons. Neil for whatever reason won’t leave the house save for the backyard, but Andrew had grown too restless after a week and started going to the park every other day. Fran and Donna are usually there, and once or twice Andrew had journeyed to their bungalow a block away and whiled away the afternoon there watching Fran tend to his garden and Donna shout encouragements from the screened-in porch.

“You know what I hate?” Andrew asks. It’s not often, even now, that he speaks up unasked, but the day is hot and the company warm, and Andrew is content.

“What, hon?” Donna asks.

“Black suits with brown shoes.”

“Oh, absolutely! I haven’t the faintest idea why anyone would ever _think_ …”

She launches into a diatribe lamenting modern fashion choices while Fran laughs at her affectionately, and Andrew lays back and lets her accented old voice wash over him. He wonders if this is what having grandparents is like, or at least, having grandparents that care about you. This foreign, calm sense of gentle protection. Andrew’s never felt it before.

There’s an ant crawling around on the bit of his leg exposed by his star-spangled Bermuda shorts, and he raises the opposite leg to rub it off with his bare foot. Donna interrupts herself to ask, “Do you need some bug spray, honey?” Andrew shakes his head and goes back to his starfish pose.

That’s another thing about them; they’re so outwardly affectionate to not just each other but everyone. Donna calls everyone she meets ‘honey’ and gives Andrew pats. He feels like a dog sometimes whenever she pats him on the head, but she’s smiling while she does it so it doesn’t really bother him. Francis is gruffer, but the underlying sentiment is the same. Donna has told him that Fran is happiest when he can fix things for people, but he only offers for people he cares about. He usually only calls Andrew by his name or ‘kid’, but sometimes when he’s absentminded or falling asleep in his chair he’ll slip and call Andrew ‘dear’.

Every time one of them does something like this and then continues on as if it never happened, Andrew feels a weird swooping sensation in his gut. He doesn’t think that’s bad, though.

-

Andrew is sitting silently in the back of the classroom, staring at and being stared at by his teacher across the room, when his phone rings. Without breaking eye contact, he slides his phone out of his pocket and answers it. “Hello?”

“Mr. Doe-” his teacher starts at the same time Stella asks, “Where are you?”

“Hey, _Stella_ ,” he responds, raising his voice so the teacher knows who’s on the other end. The man’s mouth flattens out into a lipless line. “I’m in detention right now.”

He hears a faint _It’s only the third day of school_  in the background before Stella tells him, “I’m picking you up. Meet me out front in five minutes.”

“Aye aye, captain.” He hangs up and puts his phone back in his pocket, then leans down to grab his backpack, ignoring the protests from his teacher. He manages to almost make it out the door before being pulled to a stop by the hood of his jacket.

“Mr. Doe,” his teacher says, “you still have one hour of punishment left, so I suggest you sit down before you get in worse trouble.”

Andrew replies, without turning around, “I suggest you take your hands off me before I tell my loving foster mother about your unprofessional conduct, Mr. Gotro.”

The man waits a beat, and then releases Andrew’s jacket, and he continues out the door without looking back. The good thing, Andrew thinks as he ignores his racing heart, about Stella’s protective streak is that by now most of the faculty at his school are terrified of her.

Stella’s Mercedes GL is idling out front when he gets there, Neil in the front passenger side. Andrew walks up and jerks his thumb at the backseat. Neil slowly shakes his head and grins when Andrew slaps the window. Stella honks the horn, and Andrew opens the back door, sliding into the seat and scowling.

He’s honestly surprised to see Neil out of the house. He usually only leaves for school. Other than that, he stays at home, only going to the backyard when he needs to get some air. He sticks with Andrew most of the time, but Andrew doesn’t know what Neil does when he leaves to visit Donna and Francis.

Stella looks pointedly at him through the rear-view mirror until he puts on his seatbelt, and then pulls out of the school and drives the opposite direction from home. Neil twists around in the passenger seat so he can see Andrew and asks, “How did you already get detention the first week of school?”

Andrew shrugs. “I have a bad attitude, apparently.”

“Who would have thought?”

Andrew kicks the back of his seat, and Neil grins.

They stop at a gas station, and the boys go inside to buy three bags’ worth of snacks and a full tank of gas. They get in the back together and Neil harasses Andrew about his choice of junk food until they start off again, headed out of the city, and Andrew asks where they’re going.

“The desert,” Neil answers unhelpfully. Andrew shoots him a flat look before looking to Stella in the driver’s seat.

She doesn’t answer right away, but Andrew knows that’s not because she didn’t hear him. Ever since Andrew learned the truth about the Jostens four months prior, these silences have become more common. Stella has to tread the waters between telling Andrew enough to keep him safe and keeping enough from him to make sure he doesn’t become a target, and somewhere in between those two is the fine line of keeping Andrew’s trust, something he simultaneously wishes he could give more and less freely than he already does.

Everyone in the car is aware of how delicate the situation is, but all three of them are studies in nonchalance.

“I have to pick something up,” Stella answers finally. “We’re going to a house of mine.”

Andrew nods and diverts his attention to the passing cityscape. That’s a good enough answer to satisfy him. Either way, he’d find out soon enough.

Soon enough ends up being six hours later.

(They’d crossed the border into Nevada, and Andrew wouldn’t have noticed if Stella hadn’t softly said, “Congratulations, Andrew, you’ve officially made it out of California.”)

The boys pass the time playing rock-paper-scissors, and Andrew teaches Neil how to play Sticks.

“You’ve been to how many schools and you still don’t know this basic game?”

“I don’t get it.”

“There’s nothing _to_ get. I have one finger on this hand, I point at your hand, you raise one more finger on the hand I point at. If you have all five fingers raised, the hand is out. First person to have both hands out loses.”

“So now I have two fingers up-”

“You point at me, I raise two fingers, and now I have three. I point at you, you raise three fingers. Now you have five up, so the hand is out. Congratulations, you’ve half lost already.”

Outside of the windows, the landscape turns suddenly more hilly before evening out into rocky, barren terrain. Andrew subconsciously keeps track of their direction, how they head north and then east. It’s six hours before Stella turns off onto a barely noticeable dirt road and speeds down it for five minutes before pulling to a dusty stop in front of a small ramshackle building only visible in the night because of the car’s headlights. It’s more of a shed than a house, about the size of a two-car garage, and it leans dangerously to the side. Through the gloom Andrew can just make out what appears to be the remnants of a house’s foundations a short distance away. Other than that, there’s nothing but dirt and rocks for miles.

“Your current house is a definite step up from this place,” Andrew remarks, looking at Stella. He knows she’ll understand the hidden question in his voice whether she chooses to respond or not.

Stella smiles dryly at him and gets out of the car. “Stick with me, Abram.” She doesn’t have to tell Andrew; she knows that wherever Neil goes, Andrew will follow.

Andrew hasn’t asked Neil what his birth name is. Stella calls him Abram when the situation is very serious or when Neil starts to look a little lost in his own head, but when Andrew asked, Neil had only said Abram is his middle name, the name his mother got to choose for him. Andrew assumes that means his father chose his first name, but he has no clue what it could be, and apart from idle curiosity, he really doesn’t care.

Thanks to Andrew’s perfect recall, he can perfectly see in his mind Neil’s patchwork body. He can count the scars the other boy has, and he knows that if he asked, Neil would probably reveal a history of both premeditated punishments and sudden bouts of violence from his father. Just because of this, Andrew hates the man with a ferocity he’s never known he possesses. Anything that Neil’s father had chosen for him is irrelevant now.

They step out of the car and enter the shed, which holds only a few empty metal shelving units. For some reason, the floor is covered in old sawdust. There are burlap sacks lined up against one wall, and Andrew investigates those while Neil and Stella fiddle with a shelf unit. He jumps when a screech rings out, and whirls to find that the other two had pushed the shelf a few feet to the side and are now scuffing their feet through the sawdust, revealing the outlines of a trapdoor.

He heads over to the other two and sees that the door is narrow enough to be completely hidden beneath the shelf. With a burst of clarity, he understands; the sawdust is an easy covering so no one can see the lines scraped into the concrete from the movement of the shelving unit. The sacks of the stuff are just there for easy access, but they serve as a decent and baffling diversion.

Stella fiddles with a rusted padlock that comes away eventually, and pulls the trapdoor open to reveal a narrow wooden staircase leading down into darkness. Neil’s face does something odd, some kind of twitch, but when Stella motions to enter, he does immediately. Andrew casts a fleeting glance at Stella before he follows. She has on what Andrew thinks of as her war mask: her face is blank and emotionless, almost cold. He recognizes it from the first time she’d walked into the principal’s office for him.

The steps are steep and narrow, and he has to brace both hands against the walls to avoid toppling down onto Neil. He doesn’t know whether the stairs are long or if it just feels like it takes a long time to reach the bottom, but he gets there eventually, bumping into Neil when he does. He pushes the other boy away from him by the shoulders, and then realizes that he is breathing harshly and shaking.

“Neil.” When he doesn’t get a response, Andrew mutters, “Damn it,” and pulls out his cell phone, sliding the screen out to illuminate their faces from below. Neil’s eyes are wide as they roam frantically over Andrew’s face. Just as he opens his mouth to say something, the sounds of Stella descending the steps reaches them. Neil’s hand strikes out and grabs at Andrew’s hoodie. His stomach squirms, but he allows the contact and maneuvers them out of the way.

Stella reaches the bottom and ducks down to grab something from behind the steps. It turns out to be a lantern flashlight, which she raises to shoulder height and turns on. The light reveals that they’re standing at one end of a long concrete hallway that ends in a left turn. Stella starts down and Neil disentangles from Andrew and follows obediently, his momentary panic apparently forgotten with the dark. Andrew puts his phone back in his pocket and joins them.

They turn the corner and are faced with a heavy metal door secured with a padlock, which Stella once again unlocks and opens. The door opens to reveal more pitch black, cut through with the flashlight still held in Stella’s grip. She reaches a hand inside the door and flicks something, and then the room lights up.

In the weak orange glow, Andrew can make out what appears to be an underground bunker. It’s one long, low room lit by dim emergency lights high on the walls every few feet. There are two piles of boxes to either side, and in the far corner he can just barely make out a single cot. Other than that, the room is stale and empty.

Stella walks in and flicks the flashlight off before setting it on the ground. Andrew glances behind himself to see that the emergency lights extend into the hallway. Stella rummages through one of the boxes and Andrew’s eyes flick to Neil’s face, which is curiously blank. It’s the same expression he’s had since they got here and Stella gave the first order.

“Neil, Andrew,” she says, pointing two fingers at the other stack of boxes. “Get those, put them in the back of the car.” She tosses the keys to Neil, who catches them in one hand and goes to do what she says. Andrew looks at her for a moment before following suit.

He has no idea what’s going on.

They each grab a box and head back up the stairs and outside. Neil pops the trunk and they heave the heavier than anticipated boxes into them. Before Neil can stop him, Andrew opens one of the boxes and freezes.

“Are these grenades?” he asks flatly.

Neil sighs, like Andrew is a naughty child that’s gotten into something he shouldn’t have and made a mess. Andrew’s heard that sigh a lot in his life. “Yes.”

Andrew just looks at him, unable to choose a single question out of the myriad that are roaring through his brain.

“This is one of Mom’s old bunkers,” Neil tells him, closing up the grenade box. “We kept a small stash of food weapons, and money here, and now we’re bringing everything we need back home.” He blinks, like he’s surprised himself somehow. Andrew supposes he isn’t used to sharing information so readily.

“Okay,” he concedes. “But why the _fuck_ would we need grenades?”

Neil shrugs, already walking back to the shack. “You never know,” he answers vaguely.

Andrew sighs and follows. _Mobsters._

It takes them a few more trips for all the boxes to get loaded up, and by that time Stella has a small stack of manila folders next to her where she sits on the floor. She stands with them and abandons the rest of the box she’d been digging through, and hands them to Neil. Then she goes to the corner and picks up two cans of gas, holding one out to Andrew and saying, “Hold this. Neil, take those to the car and start it.”

The handle is greasy, but he holds it anyway. Neil nods and heads outside. Andrew stays a few steps in front of Stella as she douses the walls and contents of the room, continuing out into the hallway. When she runs out of gasoline she throws her can down and takes the one Andrew holds. She sends him to wait in the car with Neil while she spreads the last of it throughout the shack.

Neil is already in the backseat, scanning the horizon. _Keeping a lookout_ , Andrew realizes. He slides in and sits next to him, wiping his greasy hands on his jeans.

The blaze that erupts when Stella strikes the match is magnificent, and so hot that Andrew knows if he unrolled the window he’d be able to feel it. Stella jumps into the driver’s seat and slams the car into motion before she’s even closed the door let alone put her seat belt on. It’s for good reason; they make it only a little distance away before a section of the shed explodes outward and the entire thing collapses.

-

Andrew starts noticing boys. It happens so gradually and so mundanely that it’s less of a shock to think _I wonder what Nacho’s lips would feel like against mine_ and more like he’s finally owning up to something he's known for a while.

For a while it’s one of the things he tries to lock away in the box marked _dontthinkaboutit_ in his brain, but these feelings don’t seem to belong there. Those memories are of what happens in the dead of night, and the feeling in his gut when he sees that smile is nothing but _light light light_. And eventually he gets tired of holding back from what he wants to do, which is leaning into the boy’s space and asking only a little breathlessly, “Can I kiss you?” So that’s what he does.

The mouth that Andrew can’t seem to look away from curls into a little smile and says, “Yes,” and Andrew kisses him. It’s the first kiss he’s ever had that he wanted. It’s close-mouthed and dry and a little too hard but when they pull away, Ignacio huffs out an embarrassed little laugh and smiles brightly, and Andrew leans back in.

-

Andrew’s sitting on his desk half-heartedly answering questions on the worksheet his English teacher assigned as homework when Neil raps on the door and enters without waiting for permission. Andrew is too preoccupied thinking about that day’s discovery to really be indignant.

He’d been thinking about it for the majority of the day since it happened, and what it means for him. He likes the way boys look. He likes looking at boys. He doesn’t know how he feels about boys looking back at him. The only boy that’s done that is Ignacio, and Andrew has already been staring at him for weeks. Now Andrew can add likes kissing boys onto the mental list that is turning into a checklist for his blossoming homosexuality.

Because there’s really no other way to look at it: he’s gay. Which makes him wonder if he’s always been gay or if it’s a result of things he doesn’t think about, if he’s been infected by a bad childhood and has no choice but to turn into the same type of monster and carry on the cycle, if he’ll end up doing what _they_ did to him-

And that’s when Neil knocks on his door with his bony knuckles and strolls into the room with a bright, “Hey, Andrew,” and flops onto Andrew’s bed.

Andrew blinks for a moment to clear away his thoughts and focus on the present. “What’s going on with you and Stella?” he asks baldly.

It’s another thing that’s been on Andrew’s mind. Over the past couple of months, the air between Neil and Stella has been largely stormy save for a couple good days here and there, and any thought of interference from Andrew had been squashed when he’d walked in on them having a screaming match at each other a few weeks ago. The sight of them red-faced and livid had been alien enough to stop Andrew in his tracks and stare at them like a toddler seeing two people fight for the first time.

Neil sits up and blinks, as if he has no idea what Andrew could be referring to. “Nothing,” he answers. “We’re fine.”

“You two didn’t say a word all through dinner,” Andrew points out flatly. “I’m not exaggerating when I say it was the most awkward family meal I have ever sat through.” He’s not; he’s definitely had dinners that were terrifying enough to make his hands shake, but awkward? Tonight’s was the peak.

Neil runs a hand through his hair and looks away, taking a moment before speaking. “When Mom and I were on the run-”

“Does everything have to be a story with you?” Andrew grumbles.

“-I never made any choices,” he continues, ignoring Andrew. “If we went anywhere, did anything, it was because she decided that’s what was best for us. I spent that whole time terrified my father would catch us. I never really thought about what I wanted, because what I wanted was for us to stay safe and I knew my mom would make sure that happened no matter what.” He sighs and rubs at his neck. “But now that we’re here…”

“You don’t want her deciding everything for you.” Neil looks up at him, somewhat guiltily. “So?”

“So, it’s-” Neil casts around for something to say and comes up empty, gesturing vaguely with his hands.

“If you don’t want her constant hovering then tell her. You stopped running so you could try to be a little normal, right?”

He looks down and is quiet for so long that Andrew almost goes back to his paper. Then he asks, “I’m not being ungrateful, am I?”

Ingratitude. Is that what Neil’s worrying about? Andrew doesn’t know what that amounts to in a normal parent-child relationship. His parents either died or abandoned him purposefully, but either way he’s square with them. Neil’s mother brought him into this world and decided to keep him so Andrew thinks she’s just been doing her responsibility when it comes to keeping the kid alive.

“She made the choice to come here. She should deal with the consequences. Why did this start, anyway?”

Neil looks up at him through his bangs. Since his hair has grown out into a shaggy mop, he always keeps a section over his forehead and his eyes. Andrew thinks it’s weakening his eyesight. “I wanted to join the math club. They meet after school.”

Andrew throws his pencil at him and only misses because he’s quick enough to deflect it.

“I’m keeping this,” Neil says severely.

“Go away,” Andrew responds. “Go tell your mother to stop being a worrywart, and get out of my room. I have homework.” He looks pointedly away and starts rooting around in his desk drawers for another pencil.

Neil slides of the bed. “Thanks, Andrew.” Andrew raises the tape dispenser threateningly, and Neil grins before slipping out of the room.

-

Ignacio misses a day of school because of strep throat, and Andrew feels a small pang of sympathy for his plight until he wakes up the next morning feeling like he’s spent all night gargling glass. He takes a moment to text _I fkn h8 u nacho_ to the cause of his agony and then goes about the morning as normally as possible.

With the exception of a raging headache and the house being ten times colder than normal, Andrew feels fine. He takes a couple ibuprofen in the bathroom, layers a sweater under his hoodie, and sticks a bottle of water in his backpack before he leaves.

He walks to and from school most days, but always has the option of texting Stella for a ride. He rarely takes her up on it, mostly because he doesn’t want to bother her, but when he has to sit down halfway to school to take a break, he thinks he’ll need one today. He gets there with enough time to shove half his stuff in his locker and make it to first period before the bell rings.

Andrew kind of spaces out after that. He goes to his next class, takes a worksheet from the stack and passes it back, writes his name on top, but other than that he has no idea what happens until the bell rings again what feels like ten minutes later. Third period goes much the same, though he ducks into the bathroom afterwards to rinse the clamminess off his face. He doesn’t look too bad, just a little pale, and he takes care of that by pinching his cheeks. That’s supposed to make people look healthy, right?

Fourth period is when something goes wrong and he just can’t bring himself to move. He stares at the whiteboard, distantly aware of the lunch bell ringing and his classmates standing up, but the sounds reach him through a fog. All he can do is sit in his seat and shiver from the cold.

He flinches back when he feels a hand press into his shoulder and looks up into the face of his history teacher, a dopey-faced man with reading glasses. He’s never had a problem with him before, but now for some reason all he can think about is how Samuel wore glasses and how he made sure to keep them on in bed so he could see better when he-

“Andrew, are you alright?” Samuel- no, it’s Andrew’s teacher- reaches forward to touch him and Andrew twists away, stumbling out of his seat.

“Don’t touch me,” Andrew croaks. It hurts to speak. _Why…?_

“You look very unwell, do you need to go to the nurse?”

“I… No. I’m okay.” He swallows with difficulty.

The teacher ( _it’s not him it’s not him it’s not him_ ) steps over the seat to get closer to Andrew. “You really look-”

“No!” He barks, stumbling back from searching hands. “Don’t- don’t touch me…” Suddenly he gets a dizzying head rush and has enough time to think _I wonder if I’m going to pass out_ before everything goes black.

-

In what seems like no time at all, Andrew opens his eyes again. Everything feels distinctly heavier, which doesn’t make sense because he’s only looking, but somehow it all rests heavily on his eyes.

“Andrew?” He looks over to see Stella sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair. “You’re in the nurse’s office. How do you feel?”

Feel? Feeeeeeeeeeeeel. Hm. How does he feel? “Heavy,” he manages out of a mangled throat. “And cold.”

“That _might_ be because you have a one-oh-three degree fever that you kept to yourself.”

Oh, she’s mad. That’s what her face is doing. But Andrew doesn’t know why she’s mad. He hopes he didn’t do anything too bad. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, just to be safe.

She looks at him for a moment and then exhales through her nose. “The nurse is going to look at you now, so sit up.”

He scrambles into a sitting position, movements slow like he’s battling through mud, and faces off with the nurse. She is armed with a tongue depressor, pen light, and a sympathetic smile. “Open up, please.” He really doesn’t want to, but already feels childish enough under Stella’s gaze, so he opens his mouth as wide as he can.

She looks her fill and then says apologetically to Stella, “It looks like strep throat to me. He should be better in a few days, but if it takes any longer or if it would make you more comfortable, take him to the doctor, they’ll probably prescribe him some antibiotics. If not, have him gargle salt water a couple times a day.”

The next thing Andrew knows, he’s walking outside and climbing into the backseat of the Mercedes to curl on his side in the fetal position, something he’ll probably be embarrassed about later. He knows he’ll remember this because of course he remembers _everything_. He falls asleep, or some semblance of it, on the way home, and then makes his way slowly into the house when Stella ushers him out of the car.

He plods up the stairs into his room and realizes that the bed is the best idea he’s had all day. He shucks his jeans and hoodie off and climbs under the covers in his underwear and sweater and immediately falls asleep.

He wakes up briefly once (because for some reason his stomach hurts really bad and there’s something wrong with it) before he slips away again. He wakes up for real to a room completely dark and burning hot. Andrew whines and sluggishly kicks the covers off of himself while peeling his sweater and undershirt over his head simultaneously. He vaguely remembers being cold, and in his current state can’t so much as fathom what that feeling might be like. Everything is burning hot and he’s sweating enough to make a boy-shaped wet spot on the bed.

His head hurts. He sandwiches it between his hands and whimpers pathetically. This sucks. He knows it’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, but he can’t really remember what that is right now, so this sucks pretty bad. Andrew doesn’t quite believe he’s ever existed beyond this awful feeling.

The door creaks open and lets a triangle of light creep across the floor towards Andrew, and _oh,_ he thought he couldn’t remember but he _can_ , this is like all those times, _no no no no nonono_

“Andrew?” a small voice asks. Wait. That’s not how this goes.

He tries to prop himself into as much of a sitting position as he can manage. He tries to say “Neil?” but it comes out too garbled from sleep and his messed up throat to be recognizable.

Neil must understand him though because he makes his way into the room and turns on the desk lamp, bathing the room in pale yellow light. “How are you feeling?”

“Bad,” Andrew rasps. “Hot.”

“I have to take your temperature, and then you can have this water.”

His temperature ends up being 38.3°, and Andrew stares, confused, at Neil until he remembers that they’re in America and says, “That’s one-hundred-and-one degrees. So still pretty bad.”

 _Feels pretty bad_ , Andrew doesn’t say as he takes careful sips of the water bottle. “Where’s Stella?” he asks, unable to make it sound less like a little kid begging for their mom.

“She’s, uh, downstairs. You threw up earlier, apparently, and she’s still recovering.”

Figures. He manages to drive everyone away somehow.

“She wants to know if you want some grapes.”

Ooh. Grapes sound good. Andrew nods as much as he can when sprawled on his side.

“Alright, I’ll let her know,” Neil says, and goes to slide off the bed, and Andrew is suddenly gripped by the fear that if Neil leaves him alone something _bad_ will happen, so he stretches and grabs the back of Neil’s shirt, stopping him.

Neil turns to look at Andrew, and Andrew focuses for the first time since he’s woken up. Whenever Neil looks at him, Andrew gets the odd sensation of being looked at for the very first time. It’s like no one had ever seen him, ever really noted his existence, until Neil had locked eyes on him for the first time. As if he’s made real by having Neil look at him. Except now there’s a furrow between his brows and he looks vaguely concerned.

“Don’t- you have to stay,” Andrew rasps. And then, smaller, “Don’t let them get me.”

Having Neil around always makes the bad things in his head go away. Andrew can feel them nearby, hiding under the bed like a child’s worst fears ( _his_ worst fears). He’s mostly sure they’re in his head and he’s only remembering what’s already happened, but his memories are strong enough to overpower reality even when he’s at full brainpower. He doesn’t want to remember that, and he’s afraid Neil will abandon him to it all the same.

Neil frowns at him for a long moment, but then he lifts a hand to the side of Andrew’s head and smooths the hair away from his face. Andrew closes his eyes and sighs. “I’ll stay,” Neil says. “Just don’t get me sick.” He scoots onto the bed a little farther to sit against the headboard, and Andrew moves his hand to grip at the front of Neil’s shirt. He falls asleep still holding on.

-

It’s a week and one doctor’s visit before Andrew is well enough to return to school, and his memory of that week is vague at best. He doesn’t know if he’s done anything embarrassing, but Stella and Neil aren’t treating him any differently, so he decides not to worry about it.

Ignacio tells him over Thanksgiving break that his family is moving to LA. “Dad got some kind of cushy desk job at his company, so. It’ll be more money coming in.”

“That’ll be better than living in a shack, I guess,” Andrew replies, chewing on the end of a Twizzler. Ignacio, his parents, and his three brothers live in a small two-bedroom house just on the border of the school district. While not run-down or ugly by any means, it’s still far too small for the de la Rosa family.

Ignacio huffs, fighting down a smile. He really does have a very nice smile. Andrew’s glad he knows not to take his callous comments at face value.

They’re sitting in a wooden fort in an abandoned playground, the kind that has a slide leading out of it. A ray of sun slips through the wooden beams of the roof and plays across half of Ignacio’s face, turning one eye into a bright amber. He smiles, differently this time, but Andrew can’t quite tell how. “I’ll miss you, Andrew.”

Andrew scoffs and looks away. “You’ll find plenty of other boys to kiss in Los Angeles.”

“Yeah, but they won’t be as handsome as you.” He laughs at the dark look Andrew sends him, and then harder at the half-eaten Twizzler thrown at his head.

-

Life continues on through the dull mediocrity it’s settled into for Andrew. His height reaches five feet and resolutely stops climbing, and Andrew has a sinking feeling that’s it for him. Neil has a growth spurt and now stands a couple inches over Andrew, something he’s outwardly smug about, and he makes sure to stand next to Andrew as often as possible so that the latter won’t forget. As if he forgets anything.

His nightmares grow steadily more distressing, which he doesn’t understand since it’s just the same stuff it’s always been. He’d lived through it and kept it together better than he does now after a nightmare, sometimes. He’s just glad that Stella and Neil sleep far enough away so that when he wakes with strangled cries in his mouth they don’t hear a thing.

He starts spacing out more often, too. It’s not always the melting-brain, out-of-body experience he’d get when he was younger, but more of a detachment from everything around him. Sometimes he feels like the only parts of his body that really exist are the handprints he can still feel branded into his skin, into his bones. He’s lost time just looking at his hands and watching his fingers flex, trying to wrap his head around the fact that they’re there and _he’s_ the one moving them.

It’s not a _problem_. He just needs to find a way to snap out of it before Stella finds out about it. He doesn’t want to upset her.

It’s weird to think that the three of them make up a family. Andrew’s lived with more couples than he cares to remember, trying to be whatever it was they’d been looking for, but even on his best behavior he’d never succeeded. He has it now without even trying, and even if he’s not quite sure where the line of getting sent back to the group home lies, he’s not very keen on finding its exact location.

But it’s hard to deny what they are when he and Neil do their homework at the kitchen table while Stella makes dinner, occasionally helping when one of them needs it and running a gentle hand through the hair of whichever boy asked before returning to her task; when Stella insists on taking a photo of him and Neil sitting in front of the Christmas tree that year with a crappy little disposable camera like it’s the nineties instead of using a digital camera; when they meet 2009 sitting in the Thornton’s garden, protected from the outside world by trellises covered in climbing plants and Neil and Andrew waving lit sparklers around carefully, making designs in the air with the afterimage of the sparklers’ light burned into their retinas.

In these moments, these small points in time, Andrew always pauses and realizes _I will remember this until the day I die, whether I want to or not._ No matter how painful it may be later, right now he’s glad to remember them, to be able to live these snapshots over and over, to see Neil’s genuine, wide smile. In these moments, Andrew is content.

-

It’s a surprisingly cloudy Saturday towards the end of January, and Andrew and Neil are laying in the backyard. “Is there anything to do?” Neil asks.

There isn’t anything to do, and they’re stuck alone at home until Stella gets back from whatever errand she’s running. Andrew thinks it has something to do with her business, considering how harried she’d looked when she left. She’s been looking like that more often recently, and spending more hours in her office. He and Neil don’t know quite what is going on, but he knows that Neil fears his father is close at hand. He hasn’t smiled in weeks.

“You could throw yourself down the stairs,” Andrew suggests. Neil is constantly brimming with energy and looking for ways to expel it. Right now Andrew is too tired to humor him, and for some reason he only reacts with disgust at the thought of any sport that isn’t Exy, so kicking around a soccer ball isn’t a viable option.

“I’d only do that if you were standing at the top and I could take you down with me. Wouldn’t be too hard. You’re small.”

“You’re, like, two inches taller than me, and I am three times your body mass.” Andrew has gained weight over the past year and a half he’s lived with the Jostens. He’s soft all over now. It’s weird: he’s used to being all angles and poky bits, and now that’s not him.

“That’s a bit of a stretch.”

“You’re a bit of a stretch.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You look like you tried to fight a taffy stretcher and lost.”

Neil snorts. “The only taffy stretcher you’ve seen is on Courage the Cowardly Dog.”

Andrew stays silent. It’s a fact, so he can’t really argue.

Neil sighs. “I wonder if Mom’ll put in a pool if we ask.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“She would if _you_ asked.”

Andrew scoffs. “She hates construction workers more than she cares about giving me what I want.” He rolls to his feet. “C’mon, moron, let’s play Uno.”

Neil groans, but gets to his feet and follows Andrew back to the house anyway. “I hate playing Uno with you. You cheat.”

“I do not. You just don’t know how to strategize your cards.” Andrew turns around to look at Neil, who scowls and lets the door slam behind him.

“The goal is to get _rid_ of all the cards, there’s no strategy-”

“What a shame,” a smooth voice cuts in. “It seems your mother didn’t teach you much then, huh, Junior?”

Andrew turns to find a woman standing in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter and rotating a knife in her hands, looking perfectly at ease. Her clothes are fashionable and expensive-looking, though somehow they make her look more dangerous than alluring.

“How cute you two are, almost like real brothers. I have a younger brother. You remember Romero, Nathaniel?” For a second Andrew doesn’t know who she’s talking to, and then he feels Neil grab the material of Andrew’s T-shirt and thinks _Oh. So that’s what his father calls him._ The woman smiles slowly. “I thought you might.”

“What do you want, Lola?” Neil asks through gritted teeth, stepping up beside Andrew. He’s deathly pale and looks like he’s trying to hide how mortally terrified he is. Andrew appreciates the effort, though he’d appreciate it more if he knew who this woman is or why his mind is screaming to _run run run get Neil **away**_.

Her smile shows her teeth, a dull white against her dark lipstick. “Your father sent me to pick you up, along with all the money your bitch mother stole.”

“If that’s the case, then he’ll have to learn to live with disappointment,” Andrew says, drawing Lola’s eyes to him. He realizes he’s staring into the soul of a predator, but he’s done that before and come out alive, so this doesn’t faze him. “Feel free to get out now.”

“What a cute guard dog.” She looks past Andrew to meet Neil’s eyes once again. “Remember your lessons with the dogs, Nathaniel?”

Neil grips Andrew’s shirt tighter and tugs slightly. Andrew is unmoved. “He’s not leaving,” he states.

She sighs, put upon, but he can see a gleam in her eye like that of the light off a sharpened blade. “If you come with me now, your pet can live, Nathaniel.”

“He,” Andrew says before Neil can open his mouth, “is not going anywhere with you.”

Lola bares her teeth at him with savage pleasure. Andrew is, nonsensically, reminded of the evil faces Tom makes when he thinks he’s finally caught Jerry. “You’re the one who made this messy, kid,” she says. And then quick as a snake strike, she throws the knife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I still know nothing about California, Nevada, any desert, ghost towns, or mines. However, Buckskin (the area of the bunker) is a real place that I googled intensively.  
> -Do kids still play sticks? Does anyone who grew up in the 00's remember that game?  
> -For any non-americans, ibuprofen is an OTC painkiller for headaches/general pain. I think it's the equivalent to paracetamol?  
> -Stella, much like my own mom, cannot deal with vomit, no matter how many people she's killed in the past.  
> -I wish I'd written more Ignacio scenes. He was a Good Kid.
> 
> Thank you once again to everyone who reads/kudos/comments. I barely responded to comments, but that's mostly bc I can't translate my happy squealing noises into an appropriate amount of characters. This chapter was slow and badly written, but it's the last happy one, so enjoy it as much as you can!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING for graphic description of on-screen panic attack, and self-harm.

He remembers everything that happens, later, but experiencing it is like watching a slideshow of photographs.

The light glinting off the knife as it sails towards him.

The pain of it burying itself in his shoulder.

Neil and Lola, toe to toe.

Blood across the linoleum.

He thinks he might be a bit in shock, even as he grabs the back of Neil’s neck and presses their foreheads together, tells him to _breathe_. He’s never seen someone die in front of him, and he’s also never been stabbed before, but the look of lost desperation in Neil’s eyes is a higher priority than all of that.

They outlive Lola and the bloodstains she leaves in the grouting.

\---

Stuart Hatford is not what Andrew expected when Neil had described “my uncle, the head of the Hatford crime syndicate.” He’s only a scant few inches taller than Stella, and of wiry build, shoulders narrow beneath his expensive-looking dark blazer. He has the air of someone who is distinctly unhurried, and has a familiar set to his eyebrows that Andrew has seen reflected on both Neil and Stella when confronted with an obstacle.

He takes one look at Andrew before promptly dismissing him altogether, turning instead to his nephew and reaching out to pat him on the head. “It’s good to see you, Na-”

“Neil,” Stella cuts in, sharp gaze on her brother.

Stuart clears his throat lightly. “Of course. I’ll have to remember that in the future.”

Neil doesn’t speak, and Stuart soon follows his sister further into the house, away from the boys.

It’s something that Andrew notices the longer Stuart stays with them; Neil is always quieter when he’s around, more like the boy soldier Andrew had witnessed when they all went to the desert to burn the Jostens’ last hidey hole. Andrew doesn’t know exactly why, but he’s automatically more defensive towards Stuart because of it.

His presence largely doesn’t have an effect on their day to day life. Stella had told them that he was flying from London and was going to stay with them to help her “sort a few things out,” and wouldn’t go further into detail no matter how much Neil or Andrew pressed. It was obvious, though, that it had a direct correlation to Lola Malcom’s (brief) presence in their home and the new scar on Andrew’s shoulder. But even a feud between different crime families isn’t enough to override the mundanity of everyday life, and so Neil and Andrew continue on with school and their other activities, no matter how many panic attacks Neil has about stepping out of the house.

“No, I- No.” Neil shakes his head. “I don’t want to.”

“Who cares? We have to go to school. You’re going to make us late, and I get enough staring with this on.” Andrew motions to the sling his injured arm rests in to take less pressure off of his shoulder. “Come on.”

“Go without me. Tell Mom I’m staying here today.” His blue eyes are wide and panicked, flitting around the kitchen as if looking for a threat that isn’t there. Andrew doesn’t think he’s even aware of the tiny backwards steps he takes towards the stairs. Always running.

“What are you afraid of? What’s out there?” Neil’s eyes latch onto him, and Andrew’s breath almost catches. _Almost almost_. “What could hurt you that’s not already in here?”

Neil swallows. “My father-”

“Isn’t here. Isn’t close by. Your mother wouldn’t let you out there if it wasn’t safe.” Neither would Andrew. “You’ve missed enough school.”

Neil shakes his head again, and opens his mouth to take a deep breath like he can’t breathe. Andrew is in front of him before he even thinks to move, reaching up with his good hand to grasp at the back of Neil’s neck. Neil’s breath whooshes out, and the next inhale is far less labored.

It’s a mimicry of the first time Andrew did this, only a month ago, when his shirt and Neil’s hands were stained in red and Neil was having a meltdown in the bathroom not ten feet away from where they stand now. He’d just been trying to ground Neil, somehow, and had acted without thinking. It seems to work, as it calms him now just as it did then.

“Hey. Neil.” Andrew’s voice isn’t soft, but it isn’t unforgiving, either. “She’s dead. You killed her. Your father is not an issue right now. We need to go to school.”

“We need to go to school,” Neil repeats quietly, to himself.

“You have a test today. You studied for it.”

“I studied for it. I hate history.”

“It’s just memorizing shit. It isn’t hard.”

“We can’t all have your perfect brain,” Neil retorts, looking Andrew in the eye and starting to smile just the tiniest bit.

The knowledge of how close they’re standing suddenly flashes through Andrew’s brain, and he drops his hand and steps back with a scoff. He feels uncomfortable, suddenly, looking up at Neil (even if it’s just a little bit; he’s not _that_ much taller) from so near him, but he doesn’t know why and doesn’t really want to dissect those feelings either. He ignores them for now and grabs his backpack from where he’d dropped it on the kitchen table, knowing Neil is right behind him as he barges his way out of the back door towards the garage.

\---

It’s not a problem when it starts out. In fact, it’s a solution in a lot of ways. He doesn’t do it on purpose, but rather quite literally stumbles into it.

It’s another one of the days he classifies as Bad. Nothing seems fully real and all his energy is spent trying not to drown in the goo his brain has liquefied into. The hallway is crowded with other students jostling each other to make it to their next class on time, and someone bumps him hard enough to send him into the wall, injured arm first.

It’s a half of a second of _ow, fuck, pain_ before the world bursts into sudden, sharp clarity and he finally feels present in his skin. He goes to class and actually focuses on what is happening, feels like more than just a bystander watching things happen through a window.

His shoulder is a dull throbbing pain, but he’s had worse. It’s a small price to pay.

The next time he does it on purpose. He can feel himself slipping away in the middle of a lecture. His notes turn into chicken scratch on the page, the pen in his hand too heavy to control, so he reaches up and digs his fingers into the bandage right over his stitches.

With the suddenness of a rubber band snapping, the world is clear again. His pen is just a pen. His shoulder is screaming, but he’s _here_.

It happens a third, fifth, seventh time before it becomes a habit. It’s not really something to be concerned about, he reasons, reminiscing about pinched elbows and trying as hard as he could to act normal on a Bad Day.

It only becomes a problem after the stitches come out and there isn’t a convenient open wound on his body to take advantage of, but he’s always been a resourceful kid.

The school assembly warning about the dangers of “cutting” is, ironically, what gives Andrew the idea. It’s not the same as in those melodramatic videos they’d showed, he reasons. He’s not a crying little teeny bopper trying to deal with excess emotions, or whatever. This is just something to help him focus when he feels less than real.

It’s not a problem, he tells himself, pressing a thumb into the top of his thigh. With a sting and a light burning sensation, the world snaps into clarity. It’s worth it.

\---

Neil finds out how bad Andrew’s nightmares can get after he accidentally falls asleep on the couch. It’s a couple weeks into their first year of high school, and Andrew’s teachers are still putting up a good attempt at being harder on them to give them a taste of what “real life” is like, or some bullshit like that.

The dream starts out weird but harmless like most do when you slip into one unawares, but eventually transforms into a dark room and then _hands touch no please too close pain stop pain please pain pain pain_ -

“Andrew!”

He flails, and feels his arm connect with a body, hard. He automatically shrinks away from it until his back hits a surprisingly cushy corner and he can go no farther.

“Andrew,” the voice says again, this time firmer, “you were dreaming. You’re safe.”

He’s distantly aware that his breaths are coming fast and shallow, but the ringing in his ears isn’t loud enough to drown out the voice. Safe? He isn’t safe anywhere. He never has been. The hands branding his skin are a testament to that. He can feel them now, and he’s tense, waiting for the pain to start, because _it will, it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming-_

“It’s Neil,” the voice says, and repeats. “It’s Neil, I’m here, you’re safe, Andrew-”

Neil. Neil is here. Why is he here? He shouldn’t- he can’t be here, with them, when he’s- The panicked fluttering of Andrew’s thoughts doesn’t let him get a concrete grip on anything. He doesn’t know where he is or what’s happening, just that he can’t breathe and Neil is here, talking.

Andrew reaches a hand out towards Neil’s voice and feels fabric curl between his fingers. “Can’t-” _breathe, think, stop_. Everything is too fast and too slow all at once. His chest hurts.

“Yes, you can. Open your mouth and breathe, Andrew.”

He tries, ends up panting pathetically.

“Out through your nose, come on, you can do this.” Neil sounds firmer now, either because Andrew isn’t almost floating away anymore or because he’s more confident in his words. “In through your mouth, out through your nose, it’s easy. Do it as slow as you can. You’re okay. I’m here, and it’s safe. We’re safe.”

The blinding panic recedes incrementally. Andrew doesn’t know how long it takes, is only aware of the feeling of soft cotton held tight in his fist. He realizes that he’s looking at his own fist curled tightly around the collar of a T-shirt. He raises his eyes to find that it is, in fact, Neil’s shirt he’s holding onto, but he can’t make himself let go.

Andrew doesn’t know what’s showing on his face, but judging by the way Neil is looking at him, it’s probably close to the way he feels: raw and exhausted and empty. The same way he’s felt for half his life. He wishes desperately that he’d stop giving so much away. He barely has anything left at all.

“How do you feel?” Neil asks.

It takes a moment to speak. “Tired.” His throat hurts.

“Do you want to go to bed?”

Andrew never wants to go to bed. Nothing good ever happens when he’s asleep, either because of the people around him or his own treacherous brain. His monsters follow him into his dreams almost every night, but being awake is no better because that’s when he has to hide it, shove it down and try his damnedest to look like a normal fucking kid. He’s so tired.

“Abram,” Stella says from the doorway, causing both the boys to jolt in surprise. Neil turns his head to look at her without moving his body from its protective hunch over Andrew. “Go brush your teeth, get ready for bed.”

“Mom-”

“Go.” Her voice is that of a general.

Neil hesitates for a moment, then turns back to Andrew and hovers a hand over Andrew’s where he still has a death grip on Neil’s shirt. It takes a moment for him to understand that Neil is asking permission to touch him. He’s too tired to think about that right now, so he stocks it away in his brain for later and nods. Neil takes Andrew hand in his own and gently loosens his hold. His hand is stiff.

Andrew closes his eyes to avoid looking at Stella once they’re alone. The blue light from the TV’s input screen paints the insides of his eyelids a light color, and he focuses on that and breathing.

“May I touch your hand?” Stella asks, her voice next to him.

He nods.

She takes his hand in both of hers just as her son did moments ago and rubs her thumbs firmly into his palm, massaging the stiffness out of it. “Neil had to yell to wake you. I heard him.”

Andrew doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t.

She works through his fingers and up to his wrist, relaxing the cramped muscles. The rest of his body unclenches as well, his heart no longer thudding painfully. He opens his eyes and watches her fingers move over his, notices how his hands are almost the same size as hers now when two years ago they were still child’s hands.

“You haven’t told me about your nightmares.” He looks up to find her already watching him. It’s the same calculating look she always gets when Andrew’s done something she wasn’t expecting.

“I haven’t,” he agrees tiredly.

“Do you want to talk about them?”

A loaded question, with a contradiction for an answer. On one hand he does, has wanted to for years. He wants to tell someone, wants them to know everything because sometimes it feels like keeping it to himself is tearing him apart more and more each day, twisting him into something he doesn’t want to be, even if he doesn’t know exactly what it is he wants.

But he’s never been good at reaching out, even when he was younger. The cons outweigh the pros; there are too many words Stella could say that would place blame at his own feet. He knows this because he’s said all those words to himself more than once. _Why didn’t you tell someone after the first time? Why did you let it go on so long? Is that really what happened? Maybe you wanted it. Maybe you liked it. Maybe they could tell-_

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he says.

She studies him a moment longer and then reaches up, slowly so that he has time to turn away, and runs a hand softly though his hair the way she’s done to Neil in the past. He closes his eyes against it. They sit like that for a moment, Stella carding her fingers through his hair while he lays there feeling both sad and empty at the same time, before she gets to her feet. “Alright. Up you get, kiddo. Time to sleep in an actual bed.”

Neil is waiting for hem at the top of the stairs, dressed in his pajama pants. “I’m sleeping in Andrew’s room tonight,” he declares, looking at Stella almost defiantly. She does nothing but rub the sleeve of Neil’s T-shirt as she passes, right over the place where Andrew knows the iron burn is, and then wishes them goodnight before heading the other direction down the hallway.

The climb upstairs was more than enough to wipe out everything but his own exhaustion from Andrew’s mind, so he goes to his room without sparing a second thought to the fact that Neil is apparently bunking with him tonight. He’s already wearing sweatpants, and doesn’t want to change in front of anyone right now even if he wasn’t, so he tugs the covers back and climbs into bed, waiting for Neil to settle next to him before pulling them over the both of them.

Andrew lays on his back and stares unseeing at the ceiling above. The only light comes from the distant streetlamps staining the night sky a light pollution orange, leaking through his window. He hadn’t closed the blinds before going downstairs to watch a movie with Neil.

Neil tears him from his thoughts with a quiet, “Do you want me to leave?”

Andrew turns his head to look at him. He’s barely outlined in the dark, the light glinting off his eyes and highlighting the curve of his cheek and tip of his nose. Andrew stares at him a moment before fully processing his words.

“Stay,” he whispers, and reaches out to grab the wrinkled bit of Neil’s shirt collar that he’d held onto earlier.

In general, Andrew doesn’t like skin-to-skin contact, and he doesn’t like any contact that he doesn’t initiate. Touch is a stressful thing to him, something that he both wants and is wary of, as it can become a trigger at the most inopportune moments. He’s better at controlling it now than he used to be, but that still doesn’t change his panic reflex or the lingering feeling of unease.

But like with most things, Andrew has come to find, Neil is different. He caught on early to the fact Andrew doesn’t like being touched and never made any attempt to “fix” him. (He lasted two weeks with that family before he smashed all the windows in the house and got sent back.) Neil somehow knows exactly when to push and when to wait him out, and he’ll never say it, but it’s an aspect Andrew appreciates about him because sometimes Andrew doesn’t even know what he wants.

He’s come to trust Neil, which is an uncomfortable realization. He’s always been on his own. The feeling settles hotly in his chest, but he doesn’t know whether it hurts or not.

Neil must see something in his face, because he turns on his side facing Andrew and says, “I’m staying.”

Andrew swallows. “Well, since you invited yourself in here and everything-”

Neil snorts loudly. “Go to sleep, Andrew.”

\---

Francis has a stroke a month before Andrew’s fifteenth birthday. They’d been building a birdhouse in the backyard while Donna fixed them lunch in the kitchen. He never comes home from the hospital. Andrew never learns how to finish the birdhouse.

\---

 “Math fucking sucks.”

“Mm.”

A pause. “Neil.”

“Huh.”

“Hey. Neil.” When Neil finally looks up at him, Andrew tosses the thick packet of math problems in his face. “Do my homework for me.”

Neil drops the packet onto the floor, unimpressed, and turns back around to face what he’s working on at Andrew’s desk. “You know, you really can’t call it homework when it’s-”

Andrew sighs obnoxiously loud, cutting him off. Neil shakes his head but says no more, and Andrew reluctantly scoots down to the foot of his bed like a caterpillar so he can reach the dreaded math packet.

Neil is right; it’s not homework. It’s all the work he’s missed because of skipping class, which is probably why it’s harder to do now. If it had been solely up to him he wouldn’t have done it at all and just said _fuck it_ but Stella had had a Conversation with him on the way home after being called to the school for a truancy meeting.

So he’s doing it. Whatever. It’s not the math he cares about.

Andrew sighs, more genuine this time, and flops on his back. The spackled ceiling is slightly more interesting than polynomials. He hates that he’s wasting a Good Day on all of this, when he could be out actually enjoying being alive for once.

The bad days are more often, now. He’s only half present most of the time, or, he would be, if he hadn’t found an effective grounding strategy.

The desk chair creaks, and then a weight settles next to him. “You know, your textbook explains everything,” Neil says unsympathetically.

Andrew looks at him, sitting crosslegged on the bedspread, kneecaps almost touching Andrew’s side, _almost almost._ “Why have a textbook explain it when I could have your cracking, pubescent voice?”

“My voice isn’t dropping enough to crack,” Neil responds, unbothered by the truth, though he looks at Andrew a touch more intently now.

He’s never bothered by the things Andrew says, the things that would get under the skin of the boys at Andrew’s school. Neil is prickly and often impatient, but most things don’t truly affect him. Andrew understands; he’s seen Neil’s nightmares, knows that everything else seems trivial compared to that. The scar tissue on his shoulder itches and he looks away, back to the bumpy irregular ceiling.

“Give me your paper,” Neil says finally. “And sit up. I really won’t do this if you fall asleep again.”

It feels like the first easy breath Andrew has taken in weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been a Hot Minute my pals. This doesn't have a whole lot of plot, more like bits and pieces that had to come before the big plot stuff and that's why this chapter is 1) small, and 2) bad. It's been over a year of writing and rewriting and rerewriting before I decided to just bang something out real quick just so everyone knows the boys are alive and things will continue. @ all the people who have messaged me about this fic or commented: I see you, I love you, and you are far stronger than me.
> 
> Updates will come after these upcoming holidays bc I'm writing a couple small things for Halloween and then focusing on the Big Four wips i have going on rn. Again thanks to anyone who has read from the rocky beginning up til now, I truly appreciate y'all.

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/1980salienboi) and [tumblr](http://1980salienboi.tumblr.com/)


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